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The USS Gerald R. Ford, the world's largest aircraft carrier, is expected to arrive off Israel’s coast and dock in Haifa on Monday, the latest addition to US reinforcements in the Middle East as Jerusalem and Washington gear up for a potential war against Iran.

As part of the reinforcements, US tankers, as well as cargo and refueling aircraft, have arrived at Israeli airports and docks.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday that a planned visit by his Indian counterpart this week was part of a broader vision to build alliances to counter both Shi’ite and Sunni Muslim radicalism.

Speaking at the start of the weekly Cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, the premier said Israel would seek to deepen economic, diplomatic and security cooperation with New Delhi, while expanding partnerships with Mediterranean, African, Asian and moderate Arab countries.

Netanyahu hinted at new Asian partner nations “that I won’t detail at the moment,” saying he would present them “in an organized manner.”

The United States and Iran will hold their next round of nuclear talks Thursday in Geneva, a facilitator said Sunday, as the Islamic Republic faces both the threat of a U.S. military strike and new protests at home.

Oman's foreign minister, Badr al-Busaidi, confirmed the talks. Oman previously hosted the indirect talks on the Islamic Republic's nuclear program and facilitated the latest round in Geneva last week.

There was no immediate comment from the Trump administration, which has built up the largest U.S. military presence in the Middle East in decades as it pushes its longtime adversary for concessions on its nuclear program and more.

A third round of indirect nuclear talks between Washington and Tehran is planned for early March, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Sunday.

“The negotiations continue and the possibility of reaching an interim agreement exists,” the official said.

The session would be a continuation of Oman-mediated meetings held earlier this month in Muscat and Geneva. The talks are taking place amid a massive U.S. military buildup in the Middle East and rising tensions.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s peace plan for the Gaza Strip will get the war-town coastal enclave “ready for a renaissance,” Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News‘ “My View with Lara Trump” last week.

“Who would ever have thought that we’d get to this place a year ago,” Witkoff told the president’s daughter-in-law, in an interview on the sidelines of Thursday’s Board of Peace meeting that aired Saturday.

The $17 billion raised by Board of Peace members for the reconstruction of Gaza “is going to jumpstart us,” he told Trump, adding: “We are going to have housing, and mass transportation, and we’re going to be able to clear and demolish all the areas there and get it ready for a renaissance.

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee responded to conservative commentator Tucker Carlson in a series of posts on X/Twitter, after an interview at Ben-Gurion airport on Wednesday resulted in several unverified claims and assertions made by Carlson to discredit Israel.

Iran and the United States continued to slide rapidly toward military conflict at the weekend, as hopes faded for a diplomatic solution to their standoff over Tehran’s nuclear program and regional actions, officials on both sides and diplomats across the Gulf and Europe said.

Israel and Iran’s Gulf neighbors now consider a conflict to be more likely than a settlement, the sources said, with Washington building up one of its biggest military deployments in the region since the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Israel’s government believes Tehran and Washington are at an impasse and is making preparations for possible joint military action with the United States, though no decision has been made yet on whether to carry out such an operation, said a source familiar with the planning.

The Trump administration is considering an Iranian proposal that would allow so‑called “token” uranium enrichment, according to senior US officials cited by Axios. 

The potential concession would test the limits of longstanding US demands that Iran’s nuclear program not leave any possible path to a bomb.

Under the scenario outlined, Washington would evaluate a written Iranian offer in which Tehran retains minimal enrichment capacity but with strict safeguards to prevent any route to weaponization.

The Supreme Court on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s use of an emergency law to unilaterally impose sweeping tariffs on most U.S. trading partners, delivering a blow to the president in a case centered on one of his signature economic policies — one he characterized as "life or death" for the U.S. economy.

In a 6-3 decision, the justices invalidated Trump's tariffs. Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Brett Kavanaugh dissented.

"The Framers gave that power to ‘Congress alone’ — notwithstanding the obvious foreign affairs implications of tariffs," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote for the majority. "And whatever may be said of other powers that implicate foreign affairs, we would not expect Congress to relinquish its tariff power through vague language, or without careful limits."

US President Donald Trump is considering launching limited strikes on Iran to force it to accept his demands for a nuclear agreement, The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday, as Tehran said bases of “hostile force” in the region would become “legitimate targets” if Washington attacks.

Citing people familiar with the matter, the Journal said preliminary US strikes on Iran could begin within days, targeting some military or government sites but stopping short of a full-scale assault that could trigger a major Iranian response.

If Iran continues to reject Trump’s demand that it give up its uranium enrichment program, the US will launch a wider assault on regime targets, with the possible aim of toppling the Islamic Republic, according to the newspaper. One source cited by the outlet said Trump could ramp up attacks until the Islamic Republic falls or takes apart its nuclear program.

Araghchi's remarks came amid reports that Trump is weighing an initial limited military strike on Iran to force the country to reach a deal on its nuclear and ballistic missile programs

U.S. President Donald Trump presided over the first Board of Peace meeting in Washington on Thursday morning, where officials gathered to discuss Phase 2 of his Gaza plan.

More than 40 countries, as well as the European Union, confirmed their attendance at Thursday’s inaugural meeting, an unnamed senior official in the U.S. administration told the Associated Press ahead of the event.

In addition to Trump, speakers at the summit included Secretary of State Marco Rubio; Special Envoy Steve Witkoff; Ambassador to the U.N. Mike Waltz; Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner; former British Prime Minister Tony Blair; and the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza, Nickolay Mladenov.

US President Donald Trump presided over the first meeting of his Board of Peace on Thursday, with unresolved questions on the likelihood of war with Iran hanging over an event that included representatives from more than 45 nations.

The president said that he would "find out about Iran in about 10 days," Trump added. "We do have some work to do in Iran. They can't have a nuclear weapon."

Regarding the future of Gaza, Trump said he believed "Hamas will be getting rid of their weapons."

Iran on Thursday repeated its assertion that no country can “deprive” it of its “right” to nuclear enrichment, as US President Donald Trump continued to send US military assets into the Middle East in what a report called the biggest build-up of American air power in the region since the 2003 invasion of Iraq.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio is expected to meet Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on February 28, according to officials in the Trump administration, as Washington intensifies diplomatic and military preparations amid rising tensions with Iran.

Iran is expected to submit a written proposal on how to avoid its standoff with the United States in the wake of US-Iran talks in Geneva on Tuesday, a senior US official told Reuters on Wednesday.

Top national security advisers met in the White House Situation Room to discuss Iran and were told all US forces deployed to the region should be in place by mid-March, the official said.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio will meet Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel on the weekend of February 28, the official said.

Satellite images show that Iran has recently built a concrete shield over a new facility at a sensitive military site and covered it in soil, experts say, advancing work at a location reportedly bombed by Israel in 2024 amid tensions with the US.

Images also show that Iran has buried tunnel entrances at a nuclear site bombed by the US during Israel's 12-day war with Iran last year, fortified tunnel entrances near another, and has repaired missile bases struck in the conflict.

They offer a glimpse of Iranian activities at some of the sites at the center of tensions with Israel and the US, as Washington seeks to negotiate a deal with Tehran on its nuclear program while threatening military action if talks fail.

Conservative media personality Tucker Carlson visited Israel briefly on Wednesday for a filmed sit-down with US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, focused on claims about the treatment of Christians in Israel and the wider region, sources told The Jerusalem Post.

According to the sources, Carlson conducted the conversation inside Ben Gurion Airport and did not travel beyond the airport complex. He departed Israel at around 3 p.m., ending a trip that lasted only a few hours.

The unusual in-and-out visit followed a public back-and-forth between the two former Fox News hosts after Carlson published an episode in early February, filmed at the Jordan River baptism site and titled "Christian Persecution."

US President Donald Trump has directly urged Tucker Carlson to ease the internal conservative fight over Israel, telling him and others to “turn down the temperature,” according to Melissa Francis, a former Fox News and Fox Business anchor who has been active in pro-Israel advocacy since October 7.

The United States has sharply increased its military footprint in the Middle East, deploying more than 50 fighter jets in the past 24 hours, even as it engages in a fresh round of diplomatic talks with Iran over Tehran’s nuclear program.

US officials described the deployment as a significant reinforcement of air and naval assets in the region. Axios first reported the buildup, citing a US official who confirmed the aircraft movements.

U.S. President Donald Trump will “indirectly” take part in U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations set to begin on Tuesday in Geneva, he said on Monday, expressing optimism that Tehran wants an agreement despite recent tensions.

Speaking with reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump said, “I’ll be involved in those talks indirectly and they’ll be very important. We’ll see what can happen.”

“Iran’s a very tough negotiator—they’re good negotiators, or bad negotiators,” he added. “I would say they’re bad negotiators because we could have had a deal instead of sending the B-2s in to knock out their nuclear potential. I hope they’re going to be more reasonable. They want to make a deal.”

A Republican senator seen as close to US President Donald Trump suggested Monday that an American decision on potential military action against Iran was “weeks, not months” away and opined that it would be a “strategic victory” for the Islamic Republic if its supreme leader isn’t toppled amid the current standoff.

Lindsey Graham made the comments during his latest visit to Israel, a day before a second round of nuclear talks between the US and Iran was set to be held on Tuesday in Geneva.

Speaking at a press conference in Tel Aviv, Graham said he was visiting the country “to reassure the Israeli people there is no light” between Washington and Jerusalem on Iran.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi arrived in Geneva on Sunday with a delegation of diplomatic and technical officials to participate in the second round of indirect nuclear negotiations with the United States, aimed at resolving long-standing disputes over Iran’s nuclear program.

Ahead of Tuesday’s talks, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi said on social media that he had concluded “in-depth technical discussions” with Araghchi, signaling close coordination between the agency and Tehran ahead of the critical negotiations.

According to the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Araghchi emphasized that discussions would focus on two key technical issues: the level of uranium enrichment and the number of centrifuges.

Amid high tensions between the US and Iran, the US Air Force has awarded Boeing a sole-source contract to replenish its arsenal of GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP) bunker buster bombs, which the US dropped over a dozen on Iranian nuclear facilities in June during Operation Midnight Hammer.

According to a partially redacted justification notice posted online last week, the US Air Force said that it was awarding Boeing the sole-source contract because “this procurement and sustainment activity is critically needed to replenish the inventory of GBU-57’s, ended during Operation Midnight Hammer (21 June 25).”

Boeing is the only company that makes the GBU-57 Massive Ordnance Penetrator, and the justification notice is intended to explain why the Pentagon did not carry out a fully competitive tender for the specially designed munition.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the US must require Iran to relinquish all of its enriched uranium and be barred from enriching more, as part of any nuclear deal with Tehran.

In a speech in Jerusalem on Sunday, he outlined several conditions he wanted, including that "all enriched material has to leave Iran" and that "there should be no enrichment capability".

His comments come as Iranian and US officials prepare for a second round of talks in Switzerland on Tuesday.