Israel’s attack on Evin Prison in the Iranian capital of Tehran on Monday killed 71 people, according to Mizan, the news outlet of the Iranian judiciary.

“The martyrs include prison administrative staff, conscripted soldiers, inmates, family members of prisoners who were at the prison for visits or legal follow-ups, and neighbors living near the prison,” judiciary spokesperson Asghar Jahangir said in remarks published on Sunday.

The state-affiliated news agency Fars reported that “much damage” had been recorded in the surrounding area.

The Israeli military attacked the entrance of Iran’s notorious Evin Prison on Monday, according to Israel’s defense minister and Iranian state news.

Security forces at the Evin detention center are known for their long record of human rights abuses, according to regime critics. Political activists, journalists and musicians are among those who have been incarcerated at the facility.

It is unclear why Israel targeted the facility. Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz confirmed in a statement that Evin had been targeted, alongside several other sites, including the flagship building of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Basij headquarters (a paramilitary wing of the IRGC), without providing any further details.

France’s foreign minister condemned the strike on the prison, which was housing two French nationals.

“The strike aimed at Evin Prison in Tehran put in danger two of our nationals, Cecile Kohler and Jacques Paris, hostages for the past three years. It’s unacceptable,” Jean-Noël Barrot said in a post on X following the attack.

The couple were on holiday in Iran in May 2022 when they were stopped by authorities and arrested on suspicion of espionage. In October that year, Iranian state television broadcast a forced confession from the pair, during which Kohler said she was an agent working for France’s intelligence services, the DGES.

A ceasefire between Iran and Israel was announced late on Monday, after 12 days of back and forth strikes that started when Israel attacked Iran earlier this month.

British police say they are reviewing comments made on stage by rap punk duo Bob Vylan and hip hop trio Kneecap at this year’s Glastonbury Festival.

Rapper Bobby Vylan took to the festival’s third-biggest West Holts Stage on Saturday shouting “Free, free Palestine,” before leading crowds to chants against the Israeli military.

Video showed the rapper shouting into the mic, “Alright, but have you heard this one though? Death, death to the IDF (Israel Defense Forces).”

The artist also performed in front of a screen that displayed a message which read: “United Nations have called it a genocide. The BBC calls it a ‘conflict,’” referring to the UK’s public broadcaster that has been showing the festival live.

The Israeli Embassy in the UK said it was “deeply disturbed” by what it called “inflammatory and hateful” rhetoric at the festival.

It said that when chants such as “Death to the IDF” are said in front of tens of thousands of festivalgoers, “it raises serious concerns about the normalisation of extremist language and the glorification of violence.”

“We call on Glastonbury Festival organisers, artists, and public leaders in the UK to denounce this rhetoric and reject of all forms of hatred,” it added.

Glastonbury Festival said in a statement that was “appalled” by Vylan’s remarks.

“Their chants very much crossed a line and we are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence,” organizers said.

Ahead of the five-day music festival, all eyes were on Irish-language hip hop trio Kneecap after band member Liam O’Hanna – who performs under the state name Mo Chara – was charged last month with a terrorism offense following an investigation by London’s Metropolitan Police.

The charge, which he has denied, relates to a London gig in November 2024 where he allegedly displayed a flag of Hezbollah – a proscribed terrorist organization banned under UK law. Ahead of the festival at Worthy Farm, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he did not think it was “not appropriate” for the group to perform.

Kneecap have been vocal critics of Israel’s war in Gaza but have previously said it has never supported Hamas or Hezbollah.

During the set, Mo Chara told the crowds that recent events had been “stressful” but that it was nothing in comparison to “what the Palestinian people are going through.”

Kneecap rapper Naoise O Caireallain, who goes by the stage name Móglaí Bap, hit back at Starmer’s comment during Saturday’s set: “The Prime Minister of your country, not mine, said he didn’t want us to play, so f**k Keir Starmer.”

In reference to his bandmate’s forthcoming court date, O Caireallain also said they would “start a riot outside the courts,” before adding: “I don’t want anybody to start a riot. No riots just love and support, and more importantly support for Palestine.”

Police in Somerset, where the festival is held, said the force was “aware of the comments made by acts” and that “video evidence will be assessed by officers to determine whether any offences may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation.”

UK Health Secretary Wes Streeting slammed the performance as “appalling” in an interview with Sky News on Sunday morning.

He said that the BBC, which broadcast the set live, and Glastonbury “have got questions to answer.”

A BBC spokesperson said that some of the comments made during Vylan’s performance were “deeply offensive,” and added it had no plans to make the performance available on demand through its iPlayer streaming platform.

A member of Irish hip hop trio Kneecap has been charged with a terrorism offense following an investigation by London’s Metropolitan Police.

Liam O’Hanna, 27, of Belfast has been charged with allegedly displaying a flag “in support of Hezbollah, a proscribed organisation,” London’s Metropolitan Police said on Wednesday.

The charge relates to a flag that was allegedly displayed by O’Hanna – whose stage name is Mo Chara – on November 21, 2024, at the O2 Forum Kentish Town, a music venue in London, “in such a way or in such circumstances as to arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a supporter of a proscribed organisation, namely Hezbollah,” the police said in a statement.

“Officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command were made aware on Tuesday, April 22, of an online video from the event. An investigation was carried out, which led to the Crown Prosecution Service authorizing the above charge,” the statement said.

The police added that O’Hanna is due to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on June 18.

Kneecap have been vocal critics of Israel’s war in Gaza. Earlier this month, UK counter-terrorism police said they were investigating the group after videos emerged allegedly showing the band calling for British politicians to be killed and shouting “up Hamas, up Hezbollah.”

Kneecap has previously said it has never supported Hamas or Hezbollah and that the footage circulating online has been “deliberately taken out of all context” as part of a “smear campaign” following their criticism of Israel and the United States in regards to the war in Gaza.

Separately, video from November 2023 appeared to show one member of the group, who are from Northern Ireland, saying: “The only good Tory is a dead Tory. Kill your local MP.” Tory is another word for Conservative, and MP is an abbreviation of Member of Parliament. In the past decade, two British MPs – Jo Cox and David Amess – have been murdered.

Kneecap later apologized to the families of Cox and Amess.

This was due to the time that elapsed between the events shown in the video and the video being brought to police attention, a spokesperson said.

Both videos have been widely circulated online in wake of the band’s Coachella set, where they led the crowd to chant “Free Free Palestine,” criticized Israel’s campaign in Gaza, and also criticized US support for the war.

Kneecap’s manager, Daniel Lambert, recently told Irish broadcaster RTÉ that the controversy “has nothing to do with Kneecap… it’s about telling the next young band… that you cannot speak about Palestine.”

This story has been updated with additional developments.

For months the talk in Kyiv was of a much-anticipated Russian offensive that would aim to gobble up more of the Ukraine’s eastern regions. So far, it’s been underwhelming – but the Russians have made some gains and vastly reinforced their troop numbers in some areas.

Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to pursue territorial gains as ceasefire talks take a back seat. Last week he restated what has long been one of his key ways of justifying his unprovoked invasion.

“I consider the Russian and Ukrainian peoples to be one people,” he said. “In this sense, all of Ukraine is ours.”

Even so, the Ukrainians have launched counterattacks in some areas and are rapidly developing a domestic weapons industry. And Russia’s wartime economy is facing stronger headwinds.

Russian troops are trying to advance in multiple areas of the 1,200-kilometer (746-mile) frontline. Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said this week there are now 111,000 Russian troops in one part of the frontline alone – near the flashpoint city of Pokrovsk in Donetsk, where there are at least 50 clashes every day. That compares to about 70,000 Russian troops in the area last December, according to the Ukrainian General Staff.

Syrskyi also claimed that the Russian infiltration of the northern region of Sumy had been halted. The Institute for the Study of War – a Washington-based think-tank, says Ukrainian forces have regained some territory in Sumy and the pace of Russian advances there has slowed.

“We can say that the wave of attempts at a ‘summer offensive’ launched by the enemy from Russian territory is fizzling out,” Syrskyi claimed.

But it’s a mixed picture. In recent days Russian infantry assaults have gained ground on the border of Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions. The Russian defense ministry claimed on Saturday that another village, Zirka, had been taken.

DeepState, a Ukrainian open-source analyst, asserted that Ukrainian “defenses continue to collapse rapidly, and the enemy is making significant advances … with constant assaults” in that area.

The Kremlin has long insisted its campaign will continue until it holds all of the eastern Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions. (It already occupies all but a sliver of Luhansk).

At the current rate of progress that would take many years. But with the Trump administration apparently less committed to driving ceasefire negotiations, the conflict seems likely to drag on through the end of the year and into 2026.

The three-dimensional battlefield is now an unlikely combination of ingenious drone-led special operations and very basic infantry assaults.

At one end of the spectrum, Ukraine’s audacious attacks at the beginning of June on Russian strategic bombers used drones operated from trucks deep inside Russian territory – a mission that took out about a dozen aircraft used to launch missiles against Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Security Service reported another drone attack Saturday that it clamed had caused extensive damage to a Russian airbase in Crimea.

By contrast, Russian soldiers on foot and motorbikes – sometimes in groups of a dozen or less – push into abandoned villages in eastern Ukraine, with drones for cover but no armor in site. It’s an approach that is forcing a change in Ukrainian tactics: to smaller fortified positions. Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said last week that defenses were being camouflaged to match the terrain and made smaller to avoid detection.

The Drone War

While infantry defend or take territory, drones continue to play a greater role in shaping the conflict. The Russians are churning out cheap, mass-produced drones designed to overwhelm air defenses and allow some of their missiles to get through. The Russians have increasingly used this tactic to hit Ukrainian cities, especially Kyiv, which has sustained considerable damage and higher civilian casualties in recent weeks.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that overnight “477 drones were in our skies, most of them Russian-Iranian Shaheds, along with 60 missiles of various types. The Russians were targeting everything that sustains life.”

The Russians use “up to 500 (Iranian designed) Shaheds per night, combining them with ballistic and cruise missiles — aiming to exhaust our air defenses,” says Umerov.

Zelensky has reiterated pleas for more Patriot missile batteries and other western systems, which Trump said last week that the US “should consider” because of large-scale attacks on Ukrainian cities.

Zelensky has said Ukraine is prepared to buy Patriots directly or through the fund established by the US-Ukrainian minerals deal.

Both sides are producing drones of all types at an astonishing rate. Ukraine’s Security Service reckons Russia is producing nearly 200 Iranian-designed Shahed drones every day, and has an inventory of some 6,000, in addition to about 6,000 decoy drones. Over the last week, the Russians have used more than 23,000 small “kamikaze” drones on the frontlines, according to the Ukrainian military’s General Staff.

It’s a never-ending race in design and production. Syrskyi said recently that Russia had developed an edge in fiber-optic-controlled drones, which are more difficult to track and intercept.

Drone warfare is a “constant intellectual struggle — the enemy regularly changed algorithms, and Ukraine adapted tactics in response,” Umerov said. “Solutions that showed high effectiveness at the beginning of the war have lost it over time as the enemy changed tactics.”

For its part, Ukraine is stepping up production of the long-range drones it has used to attack Russian infrastructure, such as airfields, refineries and transport. Umerov said “tens of thousands” would be produced, in addition to more than four million battlefield drones this year.

The longer term

Both sides continue to build defense industries that allow them to keep fighting – even if the scale of Russian production far outstrips that of Ukraine. Russia’s huge military conglomerate Rostec is producing an estimated 80% of the equipment used against Ukraine.

Its CEO Sergey Chemezov claimed at a meeting with Putin this month that Rostec’s production has grown tenfold since 2021, and its revenues rose last year to an eye-watering $46 billion.

But there are darkening clouds on the horizon. Russia’s military budget is some 40% of its total public spending – more than 6% of its GDP. That’s stoked inflation, and Putin acknowledged last week that growth this year would be “much more modest” to combat rising prices. He even suggested that defense spending would decline next year.

One senior Russian official, Maksim Reshetnikov, who is Economic Development minister, said that “based on current business sentiment, it seems to me we are on the brink of transitioning into recession.”

The head of Russia’s Central Bank, Elvira Nabiullina, disagreed with Reshetnikov but warned that financial buffers like the national reserve fund are nearly depleted.

“We must understand that many of these resources have been used up,” she told the St. Petersburg International Forum.

Putin himself acknowledged the risk, saying that while some experts predicted stagnation, it should “not be allowed under any circumstances.”

While the longer-term prognosis for Russia may be gloomy – economically and demographically – it can continue in the short-term to fund an army of more than half-a-million men that’s in Ukraine or close to its border, taking a few kilometers here and there. Despite hundreds of thousands of casualties, the Russian military can still generate forces far greater than Ukraine.

His eye still very much on the prize, Putin said last week: “We have a saying … where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “many opportunities have opened up” following Israel’s military operations in Iran, including the possibility of bringing home the remaining hostages held in Gaza.

Speaking at a Shin Bet security agency facility in southern Israel on Sunday, Netanyahu said, “As you probably know, many opportunities have opened up now following this victory. Firstly, to rescue the hostages. Of course, we will also need to solve the Gaza issue, defeat Hamas, but I believe we will accomplish both missions.”

Netanyahu’s comments mark one of the first times he has clearly prioritized the return of the hostages over the defeat of Hamas.

For months, Netanyahu has prioritized the defeat of Hamas in Gaza and talked about a “total victory.” At the beginning of May, he called defeating Hamas the “supreme objective,” not freeing the hostages.

His comments Sunday mark a potentially significant change in how he has talked about Israel’s goals in the war. He has repeatedly faced criticism from the families of hostages, opposition politicians and large segments of the Israeli public for not clearly placing the return of the hostages as Israel’s primary goal.

Reacting to his comments Sunday, the Hostages Families Forum Headquarters called for a single comprehensive deal to bring back all 50 hostages and end the fighting in Gaza.

“What is needed is release, not rescue. This difference of one word could mean the difference between salvation and loss for the hostages,” the forum said in a statement.

Elsewhere in his speech, Netanyahu also said “wider regional opportunities are opening up,” an apparent reference to efforts to expand the Abraham Accords that saw Israel normalize relations with several Gulf states.

Pressure builds for ceasefire

The comments by Netanyahu come amid increasing pressure on Israel from US President Donald Trump to make a ceasefire deal. Since the end of the conflict with Iran, negotiators have been pushing to restart stalled negotiations with Hamas in Gaza.

Netanyahu held a high-level meeting on Gaza Sunday evening, according to two Israeli sources, meeting with some of his closest advisers, including Minister for Strategic Affairs Ron Dermer, Defense Minister Israel Katz and others, to discuss the latest on Israel’s military operation in the Palestinian enclave.

Dermer is scheduled to hold meetings with the Trump administration in Washington, DC, on Monday.

Trump has made clear his desire to secure a ceasefire deal to end the war in Gaza and bring home the 50 hostages held by Hamas, at least 20 of whom are still alive.

In a post on social media early Sunday morning, Trump pushed Israel to “MAKE THE DEAL IN GAZA. GET THE HOSTAGES BACK!!!”

Trump had earlier thrown his support behind Netanyahu, calling his ongoing trial on corruption charges a “POLITICAL WITCH HUNT” – the second time the president had called for an end to the prosecution of the long-time Israeli leader.

With the conclusion of the operation in Iran – and Trump’s sudden foray into Israel’s legal system – Netanyahu has requested to postpone his upcoming trial sessions this week.

After twice rejecting the requests, the court granted the delay following a confidential session in which the judge said there had been a change to the “evidentiary structure” compared to the previous requests.

A proposal for peace, but killings continue

The latest proposal from US envoy Steve Witkoff calls for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of 10 living hostages and 18 deceased hostages in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

During this period, the two sides would enter negotiations for a comprehensive ceasefire agreement that would end the war, which is a key demand from Hamas as part of any deal.

Hamas has sought stronger guarantees around a permanent ceasefire. Until now, Israel had refused to agree to a permanent end to the conflict as it pursued its war goals of destroying Hamas’ ability to govern and the disarmament of Gaza. But Israel’s success in its military operations against Iran have potentially created a new window to pursue negotiations, an opportunity on which negotiators are trying to capitalize.

More than 56,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli strikes and military operations since the beginning of the war, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, which does not differentiate between militants and civilians. That number includes more than 17,000 children, the ministry said.

On Sunday, Israeli strikes on Jabalya al-Balad and Jabalya Al-Nazaleh killed at least 15 people, according to emergency workers in Gaza.

One of the houses that was hit was “full of displaced Palestinians, the majority of which were children,” Afana said.