United Arab Emirates — Israel attacked multiple Iranian nuclear and military sites on Friday as tensions reached new heights over Tehran’s rapidly advancing nuclear program.

Israeli leaders said the attack was necessary to head off what they claimed was an imminent threat that Iran would build nuclear bombs. Iran long has insisted its program is peaceful and U.S. intelligence agencies have assessed that Tehran was not actively pursuing the bomb.

The attack came one day after the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Board of Governors censured Iran for the first time in 20 years for not working with its inspectors. Iran immediately announced it would establish a third enrichment site in the country and swap out some centrifuges for more-advanced ones.

The U.S. and Iran had been in talks that could have resulted in the U.S. lifting some of its crushing economic sanctions on Iran in exchange for Tehran drastically limiting or ending its enrichment of uranium.

Here’s a look at some major Iranian sites and their importance in Tehran’s program.
Natanz enrichment facility

Iran’s nuclear facility at Natanz, located some 220 kilometres (135 miles) southeast of Tehran, is the country’s main enrichment site.

Part of the facility on Iran’s Central Plateau is underground to defend against potential airstrikes. It operates multiple cascades, or groups of centrifuges working together to more quickly enrich uranium.

Iran also is burrowing into the Kūh-e Kolang Gaz Lā, or Pickax Mountain, which is just beyond Natanz’s southern fencing. Natanz has been targeted by the Stuxnet virus, believed to be an Israeli and American creation, which destroyed Iranian centrifuges. Two separate sabotage attacks, attributed to Israel, also have struck the facility.
Fordo enrichment facility

Iran’s nuclear facility at Fordo is located some 100 kilometres (60 miles) southwest of Tehran. It also hosts centrifuge cascades, but isn’t as big a facility as Natanz.

Buried under a mountain and protected by anti-aircraft batteries, Fordo appears designed to withstand airstrikes.

Its construction began at least in 2007, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency, although Iran only informed the UN nuclear watchdog about the facility in 2009 after the U.S. and allied Western intelligence agencies became aware of its existence.
Bushehr nuclear power plant

Iran’s only commercial nuclear power plant is in Bushehr on the Persian Gulf, some 750 kilometres (465 miles) south of Tehran. Construction on the plant began under Iran’s Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in the mid-1970s. After the 1979 Islamic Revolution, the plant was repeatedly targeted in the Iran-Iraq war. Russia later completed construction of the facility.

Iran is building two other reactors like it at the site. Bushehr is fueled by uranium produced in Russia, not Iran, and is monitored by the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency.
Arak heavy water reactor

The Arak heavy water reactor is 250 kilometres (155 miles) southwest of Tehran. Heavy water helps cool nuclear reactors, but it produces plutonium as a byproduct that can potentially be used in nuclear weapons. That would provide Iran another path to the bomb beyond enriched uranium, should it choose to pursue the weapon. Iran had agreed under its 2015 nuclear deal with world powers to redesign the facility to relieve proliferation concerns.
Isfahan Nuclear Technology Center

The facility in Isfahan, some 350 kilometres (215 miles) southeast of Tehran, employs thousands of nuclear scientists. It also is home to three Chinese research reactors and laboratories associated with the country’s atomic program.
Tehran Research Reactor

The Tehran Research Reactor is at the headquarters of the Atomic Energy Organization of Iran, the civilian body overseeing the country’s atomic program. The U.S. actually provided Iran the reactor in 1967 as part of America’s “Atoms for Peace” program during the Cold War. It initially required highly enriched uranium but was later retrofitted to use low-enriched uranium over proliferation concerns.

#Israel delivers strike on at least six military bases near Tehran — NYT
According to the report, the strikes also targeted buildings in two heavily guarded residential neighborhoods for the Islamic Republic’s top brass.

The Israeli air force attacked at least six military bases on the outskirts of Tehran, including the military complex in Parchin, The New York Times wrote citing Iranian officials.

According to the report, the strikes also targeted buildings in two heavily guarded residential neighborhoods for the Islamic Republic’s top brass.

#Trump administration’s use of troops to help with immigration raids faces test in court.

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem promised Thursday to move forward with the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown in Los Angeles despite the waves of unrest that have followed, saying agents have thousands of targets.

“This is only going to continue until we have peace on the streets of Los Angeles,” she said during a news conference that was interrupted by shouting from U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who was forcibly removed from the event.

Noem spoke hours before U.S. President Donald Trump’s use of troops to help carry out immigration raids faced its biggest challenge yet when a federal judge began weighing a request from California Gov. Gavin Newsom to put an emergency stop to the practice.

Newsom has warned that the military intervention is part of a broader effort by Trump to overturn norms at the heart of the nation’s democracy. He also said that sending National Guard troops on the raids has further inflamed tensions in Los Angeles, where large and sometimes volatile protests have broken out since the crackdown began nearly a week ago.

So far, the protests have been centrfed mostly in downtown L.A. near City Hall and a federal detention centre where some immigrants are being held. Much of the sprawling city has been spared from the protests.

The Trump administration on Wednesday called Newsom’s lawsuit a “crass political stunt endangering American lives.”

The hearing Thursday in San Francisco opened with Senior U.S. District Court Judge Charles R. Breyer asking attorneys whether Trump followed the law when he called in the National Guard.

“We’re talking about the president exercising his authority, and the president is, of course, limited in that authority,” Breyer said. “That’s the difference between a constitutional government and King George.”

The judge added: “This country was founded in response to a monarch, and the constitution is a document of limitations. I’m trying to figure out where the lines are drawn.”

Demonstrations have picked up across the U.S., with protests emerging in more than a dozen major cities. On Wednesday, police in Seattle used pepper spray to clear out protesters, and officers in Denver used smoke and pepper balls to control a crowd.

Police in riot gear — many on horseback — charged at a group of protesters Wednesday night in L.A. just before the start of the second night of the city’s downtown curfew. The officers struck some demonstrators with wooden rods and later fired crowd-control projectiles. After the curfew went into effect, a handful of arrests were made before the area cleared out.
Noem calls action in L.A. a blueprint

The immigration agents conducting the raids in L.A. are “putting together a model and a blueprint” for other communities, Noem said.

She pledged that federal authorities “are not going away,” even though, she said, officers have been hit with rocks and bricks and assaulted. She said people with criminal records who are in the country illegally and violent protesters will “face consequences.”

“Just because you think you’re here as a citizen, or because you’re a member of a certain group or you’re not a citizen, it doesn’t mean that you’re going to be protected and not face consequences from the laws that this country stands for,” she said.

Noem criticized the California senator’s interruption, calling it “inappropriate.” A statement from her agency said Noem and Padilla met after the news conference for about 15 minutes, but it also chided him for “disrespectful political theater.”

Padilla said later that he was demanding answers about the “increasingly extreme immigration enforcement actions” and only wanted to ask Noem a question. He said he was handcuffed but not arrested.

“If this is how this administration responds to a senator with a question, I can only imagine what they are doing to farm workers, to cooks, to day laborers throughout the Los Angeles community,” he said.
Military involvement escalates in L.A.

The Trump administration has rapidly expanded military deployments to Los Angeles over the past week and has said it is willing to send troops to other cities to assist with immigration enforcement and controlling disturbances — in line with what Trump promised during last year’s campaign.

Some 2,000 Guard soldiers are in the nation’s second-largest city and are soon to be joined by 2,000 more, along with about 700 Marines, said Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, who’s in charge of the operation.

About 500 of the Guard troops deployed to the Los Angeles protests have been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations, the commander said Wednesday. The Guard has the authority to temporarily detain people who attack officers, but any arrests must be made by law enforcement.

While some troops have already gone on such missions, he said it’s too early to say if that will continue even after the protests die down.

“We are expecting a ramp-up,” Sherman said, noting that protests across the nation were being discussed. “I’m focused right here in LA, what’s going on right here. But you know, I think we’re, we’re very concerned.”
States face questions on deploying troops

With more demonstrations expected over the weekend, and the possibility that Trump could send troops to other states for immigration enforcement, governors are weighing what to do.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, has put 5,000 National Guard members on standby in cities where demonstrations are planned. In other Republican-controlled states, governors have not said when or how they’re planning to deploy troops for protests.

A group of Democratic governors earlier this week signed a statement calling Trump’s deployments “an alarming abuse of power.”

“Illinois follows the law. But let me be clear: We expect the federal government to follow the law too,” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker said Thursday during a Capitol Hill hearing on state immigration policies. “We will not participate in abuses of power.”
Hundreds have been arrested in L.A. protests

Los Angeles police have made about 470 arrests since Saturday, the vast majority of which were for failing to leave the area at the request of law enforcement, according to the police department.

There have been a handful of more serious charges, including for assault against police officers and for possession of a Molotov cocktail and a gun. Nine police officers have been hurt, mostly with minor injures. Some were transported to a hospital and released.

Rodriguez reported from San Francisco and Seewer reported from Toledo, Ohio. Associated Press writers Julie Watson in San Diego, Jesse Bedayn in Denver, and Jim Vertuno in Austin, Texas, contributed to this report

#UN votes overwhelmingly to demand Gaza ceasefire, hostage release and aid access. UN member nations voted overwhelmingly Thursday to demand an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the release of all hostages held by Hamas, and unrestricted access for the delivery of desperately needed food to 2 million Palestinians.

The vote in the 193-member General Assembly was 149-12 with 19 abstentions. It was adopted with a burst of applause.

The resolution, drafted by Spain, “strongly condemns any use of starvation of civilians as a method of warfare.”

Speaking before the vote, Israel’s UN Ambassador Danny Danon vehemently opposed the resolution. He denied that Israel was using starvation as a weapon of war, calling the accusation “blood libel,” and insisted that aid is being delivered.

Experts and human rights workers say hunger is widespread in Gaza and some 2 million Palestinians are at risk of famine if Israel does not fully lift its blockade and halt its military campaign, which it renewed in March after ending a ceasefire with Hamas.

At the start of Thursday’s meeting, Spain’s UN Ambassador Héctor José Gómez Hernández urged members to vote in favor of the resolution in light of “the catastrophic humanitarian situation in Gaza.”

The Palestinian UN ambassador, Riyad Mansour, also pleaded with UN members to vote in favor.

“The actions you take today to stop the killing, displacement and the famine will determine how many more Palestinian children die a horrible death,” he said.

Last week, the UN Security Council failed to pass a resolution demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and calling on Israel to lift all restrictions on the delivery of aid. The United States vetoed the resolution because it was not linked to the release of the hostages, while all 14 other members of the council voted in favor.

There are no vetoes in the 193-member General Assembly. But unlike in the Security Council, assembly resolutions are not legally binding, though they are seen as a barometer of world opinion.

After a 10-week blockade that barred all aid to Gaza, Israel is allowing the United Nations to deliver a trickle of food assistance and is backing a newly created U.S. aid group, which has opened several sites in the center and south of the territory to deliver food parcels.

But the aid system rolled out last month by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has been troubled by near-daily shootings as crowds make their way to aid sites, while the longstanding UN-run system has struggled to deliver food because of Israeli restrictions and a breakdown of law and order.

Like the failed Security Council resolution, the resolution passed on Thursday does not condemn Hamas’ deadly attack in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which ignited the war, or say the militant group must disarm and withdraw from Gaza. Both are U.S. demands.

Acting U.S. Ambassador Dorothy Shea told the assembly before the vote that the resolution “sends an unacceptable message to Hamas and other Iran-backed terrorist proxies, and that message is, you will be rewarded for taking hostages, diverting aid and launching attacks from civilian areas.”

The resolution references a March 28 legally binding order by the top United Nations court for Israel to open more land crossings into Gaza for food, water, fuel and other supplies. The International Court of Justice issued the order in a case brought by South Africa accusing Israel of acts of genocide in its war in Gaza, charges Israel strongly denies.

The resolution stresses that Israel, as an occupying power, has an obligation under international law to ensure that humanitarian aid reaches those in need.

It reiterates the assembly’s commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the Gaza Strip as part of a Palestinian state. The assembly is holding a high-level meeting next week to push for a two-state solution, which Israel has rejected.

Russia is prepared to help Iran with the transfer of excess nuclear fuel if such a need arises, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

"We maintain regular contact with Iran," Peskov said at a news briefing in response to a question whether the US and Iran discussed during their talks on the Iranian nuclear program Russia’s possible assistance regarding the disposal of excess nuclear fuel.

"You know, this issue was discussed with precisely such formulations during the most recent telephone call between [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and [US President Donald] Trump," he continued.

"Russia will be ready to assist with such operations if it is necessary and the involved parties consider it to be required," Peskov added.

On June 4, the presidents of Russia and the US held their fourth phone call since Trump had taken office.
Washington-Tehran negotiations on Iranian nuclear program

The US and Iran held the fifth round of nuclear talks in Rome on May 23. Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Al Busaidi, who acts as a mediator between the parties, said at that time "certain but not final progress" had been achieved.

The first round of talks took place in Muscat on April 12; the second one was held in Rome on April 19; the parties returned to Oman’s capital for the third round of consultations on April 26 and for the fourth round on May 11.

On June 1, the White House said that US Special Presidential Envoy Steve Witkoff had sent a "detailed and acceptable" proposal to the Iranian authorities. According to previous reports from the US-based Axios news website, the proposal "would allow limited low-level uranium enrichment on Iranian soil for a to-be-determined period of time."

US President Donald Trump, however, stated on June 7 that Iran should not enrich uranium or it would face consequences from Washington.

The Iranian Foreign Ministry pointed out that the country’s authorities were ready to discuss limiting the volume and level of uranium enrichment with the United States if sanctions were lifted, but they would never halt the nuclear program because the right to peaceful nuclear energy was guaranteed to all signatories of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Iran had been one of the first countries to sign the document.

#Putin, Mirziyoyev discussed economic, energy projects of two countries — #Kremlin .

Presidents of Russia and Uzbekistan Vladimir Putin and Shavkat Mirziyoyev discussed joint economic and energy projects of the two countries in a telephone conversation, the Kremlin’s press service said.

"Issues of practical implementation of a number of bilateral economic and energy projects were also discussed," the Kremlin said.

"The successful performance of the 4th Tashkent International Investment Forum, where the Russian delegation also took part, was noted from both sides," the Kremlin’s press service added.

Scientists have identified a previously unknown 86 million-year-old dinosaur species that fills an early gap in the fossil record of tyrannosaurs, revealing how they evolved to become massive apex predators.

Researchers analyzing the species’ remains have named it Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, which translates to “dragon prince of Mongolia,” because it was small compared with its much larger relatives such as Tyrannosaurus rex, whose name means “the tyrant lizard king.” The newly identified dinosaur was the closest known ancestor of tyrannosaurs and likely served as a transitional species from earlier tyrannosauroid species, according to the findings published Wednesday in the journal Nature.

Based on a reexamination of two partial skeletons uncovered in Mongolia’s Gobi Desert in 1972 and 1973, the new study suggests that three big migrations between Asia and North America led tyrannosauroids to diversify and eventually reach a gargantuan size in the late Cretaceous Period before going extinct 66 million years ago.

“This discovery of Khankhuuluu forced us to look at the tyrannosaur family tree in a very different light,” said study coauthor Darla Zelenitsky, associate professor within the department of Earth, energy, and environment at the University of Calgary, in an email. “Before this, there was a lot of confusion about who was related to who when it came to tyrannosaur species. What started as the discovery of a new species ended up with us rewriting the family history of tyrannosaurs.”
Multiple migrations over millions of years

Tyrannosaurs, known scientifically as Eutyrannosaurians, bring to mind hulking dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus rex and Tarbosaurus, which weighed multiple metric tons and could take down equally large prey.

With short arms and massive heads, they walked on two legs and boasted sharp teeth, Zelenitsky said.

But tyrannosaurs didn’t start out that way. They evolved from smaller dinosaurs before dominating the landscapes of North America and Asia between 85 million and 66 million years ago, the researchers said.

While Tarbosaurus, an ancestor of T. rex, clocked in at between 3,000 and 6,000 kilograms (6,613 pounds and 13,227 pounds), the fleet-footed Khankhuuluu mongoliensis likely weighed only around 750 kilograms (1,653 pounds), spanned just 2 metres (6.5 feet) at the hips and 4 metres (13 feet) in length, according to the study authors.

Comparing the two dinosaurs would be like putting a horse next to an elephant —Khankhuuluu would have reached T. rex’s thigh in height, Zelenitsky said.

“Khankhuuluu was almost a tyrannosaur, but not quite,” Zelenitsky said. “The snout bone was hollow rather than solid, and the bones around the eye didn’t have all the horns and bumps seen in T. rex or other tyrannosaurs.”

Khankhuuluu mongoliensis, or a closely related ancestor species, likely migrated from Asia to North America across a land bridge between Alaska and Siberia that connected the continents 85 million years ago, Zelenitsky said.

Because of this migrant species, we now know that tyrannosaurs actually evolved first on the North American continent and remained there exclusively over the next several million years, she said. “As the many tyrannosaur species evolved on the continent, they became larger and larger.”

Due to the poor fossil record, it’s unclear what transpired in Asia between 80 million to 85 million years ago, she added. While some Khankhuuluu may have remained in Asia, they were likely replaced later on by larger tyrannosaurs 79 million years ago.

U.S. National Guard troops have temporarily detained civilians in L.A. protests, commander says.

About 500 of the National Guard troops deployed to the Los Angeles protests have been trained to accompany agents on immigration operations, the commander in charge said Wednesday. And while some troops have already gone on such missions, he said it’s too early to say if that will continue even after the protests die down.

Maj. Gen. Scott Sherman, speaking in an interview with The Associated Press and ABC, also warned that he expects the protest situation will escalate. “We are expecting a ramp up,” he said, noting that protests across the nation are being planned and discussed now. “I’m focused right here in LA, what’s going on right here. But you know, I think we’re, we’re very concerned.”

Sherman, commander of Task Force 51 that is overseeing the more than 4,000 Guard troops and 700 Marines deployed, initially said that National Guard troops had already temporarily detained some civilians. He later said he was incorrect, and that he had based his comments on photos and footage he had seen that turned out to not be a representation of Guard members in Los Angeles.

He said that as of Wednesday, none of the troops has detained a protester. But he said they have gone through days of training and are prepared to do so if needed. Close to 2,000 of the Guard members have either been out protecting federal facilities or personnel already or are ready to move out, and the Marines will wrap up their training and are expected to be on the streets of Los Angeles as early as Thursday evening, Sherman said.

The decision to have the soldiers provide security on the raids moves troops closer than ever before to carrying out law enforcement actions such as deportations, as President Donald Trump has promised as part of his immigration crackdown.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom has called the troop deployment a “serious breach of state sovereignty” and a power grab by Trump, and has gone to court to stop it. The president has cited a legal provision that allows him to mobilize federal service members when there is “a rebellion or danger of a rebellion against the authority of the Government of the United States.”

Under the Posse Comitatus Act, active-duty forces are prohibited by law from conducting law enforcement. Sherman said all of the Guard troops and Marines are going through several days of training on civil unrest and crowd control so they know exactly what they can and can’t do.

As an example, Sherman said if Guard members see someone trying to assault a civilian or a law enforcement officer, they are allowed to grab them and hold onto them. Then they would quickly turn them over to law enforcement, who would handcuff the person or arrest them.

The roughly 500 being used to provide security on the raids undergo expanded instruction, legal training and rehearsals with the agents doing the enforcement before they go on those missions. Photos of Guard soldiers providing security for the agents have been circulated by immigration officials.

“We are doing rehearsals with these groups of agents that are doing these missions,” Sherman said. “A crawl, walk, run rehearsal, if you will, so that we fully understand their operations.”

He said he has explained to the agents that “we are not law enforcement. This is not how we train.” And he’s made it clear the agents have to be very deliberate in how they explain to the troops exactly what they need them to do. At this point, he said, none of the Marines has been trained to go on the immigration raids.

Not all the 500 Guard members have been on missions yet. Sherman said it’s not clear yet if Marines will eventually also go on the raid missions, but added that he has full confidence in their ability.

While much of the first 2,000 Guard soldiers are already trained and many have gone out to do the protest security duty, the public will only see several hundred on the ground at a time. The troops work in shifts.

The other 2,000 Guard members that were notified of deployment earlier this week have not yet begun to train. It will be several days before they are ready to participate in the mission.

Under routine self-defense guidelines, troops can do whatever is needed to protect themselves or the lives of others.

Overall, Sherman said, this is a difficult assignment for the troops.

#Iran says to target U.S. bases if conflict breaks out. — Iran threatened Wednesday to target U.S. #military bases in the region if conflict breaks out, while President Donald Trump said he was “less confident” about reaching a nuclear deal.

Amid escalating tensions, a U.S. official said staff levels at the embassy in Iraq were being reduced over security concerns, while the UK Maritime Trade Operations, run by the British navy, advised ships to transit the Gulf with caution.

Tehran and Washington have held five rounds of talks since April to thrash out a new nuclear deal to replace the 2015 accord that Trump abandoned during his first term in 2018.

Since returning to office in January, Trump has revived his “maximum pressure” campaign on Tehran, backing nuclear diplomacy but warning of military action if it fails.

“All its bases are within our reach, we have access to them, and without hesitation we will target all of them in the host countries,” Iran’s Defence Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh said in response to U.S. threats of military action if the talks fail.

“God willing, things won’t reach that point, and the talks will succeed,” the minister said, adding that the U.S. side “will suffer more losses” if it came to conflict.

The United States has multiple bases in the Middle East, with the largest located in Qatar.

Iran and the United States have recently been locked in a diplomatic standoff over Iran’s uranium enrichment, with Tehran defending it as a “non-negotiable” right and Washington calling it as a “red line”.

Trump had previously expressed optimism about the talks, saying during a Gulf tour last month Washington was “getting close” to securing a deal.

But in an interview published Wednesday, Trump said he was “less confident” the United States and Iran could reach a deal, in response to a question on whether he believed he could stop Tehran from enriching uranium.
‘A shame’

Iran currently enriches uranium to 60 percent, far above the 3.67-per cent limit set in the 2015 deal and close though still short of the 90 per cent needed for a nuclear warhead.

Western countries, including the United States and its ally Israel, have long accused Iran of seeking to acquire atomic weapons, while Tehran insists its nuclear programme is for peaceful purposes.

Last week, Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said enrichment is “key” to Iran’s nuclear programme and that Washington “cannot have a say” on the issue.

During the interview with the New York Post’s podcast “Pod Force One”, which was recorded on Monday, Trump said he was losing hope a deal could be reached.

“I don’t know. I did think so, and I’m getting more and more -- less confident about it. They seem to be delaying and I think that’s a shame. I am less confident now than I would have been a couple of months ago,” he said.

“Something happened to them but I am much less confident of a deal being made... Maybe they don’t wanna make a deal, what can I say? And maybe they do. There is nothing final.”

Trump maintained that Washington would not allow Tehran to obtain nuclear weapons, saying “it would be nicer to do it without warfare, without people dying”.

On May 31, after the fifth round of talks, Iran said it had received “elements” of a U.S. proposal for a nuclear deal, with Araghchi later saying the text contained “ambiguities”.

Iran has said it will present a counter-proposal to the latest draft from Washington, which it had criticised for failing to offer relief from sanctions -- a key demand for Tehran, which has been reeling under their weight for years.

On Monday, the United Nations nuclear watchdog began a Board of Governors meeting in Vienna that will last until Friday to discuss Iran’s atomic activities and other issues.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) meeting followed a report issued by it criticising “less than satisfactory” cooperation from Tehran, particularly in explaining past cases of nuclear material found at undeclared sites.

Iran has criticised the IAEA report as unbalanced, saying it relied on “forged documents” provided by its arch-foe Israel.

In January 2020, Iran fired missiles at bases in Iraq housing American troops in retaliation for the U.S. strike that killed top Iranian general Qassem Soleimani days before at Baghdad airport.

Dozens of U.S. soldiers suffered traumatic brain injuries.

#Israel MPs to vote on opposition bid to dissolve parliament. JERUSALEM — Israel’s parliament rejected early on Thursday a preliminary vote to dissolve itself, the Knesset said in a statement, after an agreement was reached regarding a dispute over conscription.

The vote, which could have been a first step leading to an early election that polls show Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would lose, was rejected with 61 lawmakers opposing it to 53 supporting it.

The Knesset consists of 120 seats, and the majority needed to pass the vote was 61 lawmakers.

This gives Netanyahu’s ruling coalition further time to resolve its worst political crisis yet and avoid a ballot, which would be Israel’s first since the eruption of the war with Hamas in Gaza.

Netanyahu has been pushing hard to resolve a deadlock in his coalition over a new military conscription bill, which has led to the present crisis.

“I am pleased to announce that after long discussions we have reached agreements on the principles on which the draft law will be based,” Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defence Committee Yuli Edelstein said in a statement.

Some religious parties in Netanyahu’s coalition are seeking exemptions for ultra-Orthodox Jewish seminary students from military service that is mandatory in Israel, while other lawmakers want to scrap any such exemptions altogether.

The exemptions have been a hot-button issue in Israel for years but have become particularly contentious during the war in Gaza, as Israel has suffered its highest battlefield casualties in decades and its stretched military is in need of more troops.

Growing increasingly impatient with the political deadlock, ultra-Orthodox coalition factions have said they will vote with opposition parties in favor of dissolving the Knesset and bringing forward an election that is not due until late 2026.

“It’s more than ever urgent to replace Netanyahu’s government and specifically this toxic and harmful government,” said Labour’s opposition lawmaker Merav Michaeli. “It’s urgent to end the war in Gaza and to bring back all the hostages. It’s urgent to start rebuilding and healing the state of Israel.”

Successive polls have predicted that Netanyahu’s coalition would lose in an election, with Israelis still reeling over the security failure of Palestinian militant group Hamas’ October 7 2023 attack and hostages still held in Gaza.

Hamas’ surprise attack led to Israel’s deadliest single day and shattered Netanyahu’s security credentials, with 1,200 people killed and 251 hostages taken into Gaza.

Israel’s offensive against Hamas in Gaza has since killed almost 55,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the Gaza, left much of the territory in ruins, and its more than two million population largely displaced and gripped by a humanitarian crisis.

Twenty months into the fighting, public support for the Gaza war has waned. More than 400 Israeli soldiers have been killed in combat there, adding to anger many Israelis feel over the ultra-Orthodox exemption demands even as the war drags on.

Ultra-Orthodox religious leaders, however, see full-time devotion to religious studies as sacrosanct and military service as a threat to the students’ strict religious lifestyle.

Writing by Maayan Lubell; Additional reporting by Enas Alashray; Editing by Crispian Balmer, William Maclean and Michael Perry