Israel’s Knesset passed a law on Monday, making death by hanging the default sentence for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank convicted of deadly terrorist attacks against Israelis, with the bill approved by a 62-48 vote.

The law, championed by Jewish supremacist and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, applies to military courts in the West Bank and mandates execution within 90 days of sentencing, with no right to clemency, though life imprisonment may be imposed in “special circumstances.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who had previously expressed reservations, personally attended the session and voted in favor, calling it a fulfillment of coalition commitments.

Ben-Gvir and coalition lawmakers celebrated the passage with champagne and wore noose-shaped lapel pins, declaring it a historic deterrent against terrorism. The law is widely seen as discriminatory because it effectively excludes Jewish Israelis from facing the death penalty, as it applies only to acts intended to “negate the existence of the State of Israel”—a threshold legal experts say would rarely, if ever, apply to Jewish extremists.

Critics, including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, have filed a petition to the Supreme Court, calling the law “discriminatory by design” and enacted without legal authority over occupied territory.

The law does not apply retroactively, excluding perpetrators of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attacks, and faces potential judicial and logistical hurdles before any execution can occur—Israel has not carried out a death sentence since 1962, when Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann was executed.

International condemnation was swift: the European Union, along with France, Germany, Italy, and the UK, issued a joint statement calling the law “de facto discriminatory” and a violation of democratic principles. UN human rights chief Volker Türk warned that its application could constitute a war crime, while Palestinian leaders denounced it as “institutionalized extrajudicial killing.” The U.S. State Department said it respects Israel’s sovereignty but emphasized that any measures must uphold fair trial standards.

Iran and Hezbollah launched renewed missile barrages early Monday, targeting the Bazan oil refinery in Haifa, Israel, striking it with debris from intercepted missiles and causing fires and localized power outages, while no significant damage or casualties were reported at the facility.

The attack, which also hit radar systems at the Kiryat Eliezer base and the Stella Maris maritime monitoring facility, followed a series of strikes by Iran on energy infrastructure across the Gulf, including hits on Saudi Arabia's Ras Tanura refinery and Kuwait's power and desalination plants (which Iran denied doing), as Tehran retaliated against what it called Israeli and U.S. attacks on its South Pars gas field and nuclear sites.

Iran's IRGC confirmed targeting Haifa and Ashdod with Khyber-Shakan missiles in response to attacks on its energy infrastructure, while Hezbollah simultaneously launched precision rockets against Israeli air defense and surveillance sites.

In response, Israel and the United States continued their offensive against Iran, with B-2 stealth bombers striking ballistic missile facilities and the U.S. claiming the destruction of Iran's navy headquarters and multiple warships.

Power cuts were reported in Tehran and Alborz provinces after attacks on Iran's electricity infrastructure, though services were largely restored in most areas.

While President Donald Trump declared the war would end "pretty soon," U.S. Vice President JD Vance advocated for a rapid U.S. exit from the conflict, citing the high human and economic costs.

"The United States of America is in serious discussions with A NEW, AND MORE REASONABLE, REGIME to end our Military Operations in Iran," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "Great progress has been made but, if for any reason a deal is not shortly reached, which it probably will be, and if the Hormuz Strait is not immediately 'Open for Business,' we will conclude our lovely 'stay' in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!), which we have purposefully not yet 'touched.' This will be in retribution for our many soldiers, and others, that Iran has butchered and killed over the old Regime’s 47 year 'Reign of Terror.' Thank you for your attention to this matter."

SpaceX Falcon 9 launched the Transporter-16 rideshare mission on Monday(March 30,) at 1102 UTC, carrying 119 payloads into Sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) from Space Launch Complex 4E at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California, the 21st flight in the company's dedicated smallsat rideshare program.

The Falcon 9 first-stage booster, B1093, embarked on its 12th flight, having previously flown SDA T1TL-B, SDA T1TL-C, and nine Starlink missions. About 8.5 minutes after liftoff, the booster executed a precision landing on the autonomous droneship "Of Course I Still Love You" stationed in the Pacific Ocean.

Deployment of the 119 payloads began roughly 55 minutes after launch and continued for over two hours through roughly T+2 hours 31 minutes, temporarily increasing the density of tracked objects in the SSO shell.

The mission featured a diverse manifest including cubesats, microsats, hosted payloads, a reentry vehicle, and orbital transfer vehicles (OTVs) that would later deploy eight additional satellites.

Exolaunch served as the largest customer, managing the deployment of 57 payloads for over 25 entities, including private companies, government agencies, and academic institutions. Other key integrators included SEOPS (19 payloads), NearSpace Launch (hosting the "Dream Big Constellation"), and Momentus Inc. (deploying the Vigoride-7 Orbital Service Vehicle with 10 payloads).

Transporter-16 is part of a broader rideshare lineage that has collectively delivered over 1,600 payloads to orbit, with the program now operating at a near-quarterly cadence.

The mission highlights the contributions of Elon Musk's SpaceX to the rapid growth of the commercial small-satellite industry, enabling universities, startups, and researchers to access space without the expense of dedicated launches.

Transporter missions like this one enable smaller operators to reach orbit affordably (as low as hundreds of thousands of dollars per payload in some cases) without needing a dedicated launcher. They have been key to the growth of commercial EO constellations and smallsat innovation.

Vandenberg’s coastal location and southern launch azimuth support high-inclination/polar/SSO orbits without overflying populated areas.