Israel is on high alert for the possibility of any U.S. intervention in Iran as authorities there confront the biggest anti-government protests in years, Reuters reported citing three Israeli sources with knowledge of the matter.

President Donald Trump has repeatedly threatened to intervene in recent days and warned Iran’s rulers against using force against demonstrators. On Saturday, Trump said the U.S. stands “ready to help”, Reuters reported.

The sources, who were present for Israeli security consultations over the weekend, did not elaborate on what Israel’s high-alert footing meant in practice. Israel and Iran fought a 12-day war in June, in which the U.S. joined Israel in launching airstrikes.

In a phone call on Saturday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio discussed the possibility of U.S. intervention in Iran, according to an Israeli source who was present for the conversation. A U.S. official confirmed the two men spoke but did not say what topics they discussed.

Israel has not signalled a desire to intervene in Iran as protests grip the country, with tensions between the two arch-foes high over Israeli concerns about Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programmes.

In an interview with the Economist published on Friday, Netanyahu said there would be horrible consequences for Iran if it were to attack Israel. Alluding to the protests, he said: “Everything else, I think we should see what is happening inside Iran.”

China, Russia and Iran began a week of joint naval exercises in South Africa’s waters on Saturday in what the host country described as a BRICS Plus operation to “ensure the safety of shipping and maritime economic activities”.

BRICS Plus is an expansion of a geopolitical bloc originally comprising Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – and seen by members as a counterweight to U.S. and Western economic dominance – to include six other countries.

Though South Africa routinely carries out naval exercises with China and Russia, it comes at a time of heightened tensions between U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration and several BRICS Plus countries, including China, Iran, South Africa and Brazil.

The expanded BRICS group also includes Egypt, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.

Chinese military officials leading the opening ceremony said Brazil, Egypt and Ethiopia participated as observers.

“Exercise WILL FOR PEACE 2026 brings together navies from BRICS Plus countries for … joint maritime safety operations (and) interoperability drills,” South Africa’s military said in a statement.

Lieutenant Colonel Mpho Mathebula, acting spokesperson for joint operations, told Reuters all members had been invited.

Trump has accused the BRICS nations of pursuing “anti-American” polities, and last January threatened all members with a 10% trade tariff on top of duties he was already imposing on countries across the world.

The pro-Western Democratic Alliance, the second largest party in South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s coalition, said the exercises “contradict our stated neutrality” and that BRICS had “rendered South Africa a pawn in the power games being waged by rogue states on the international stage”.

Mathebula rejected that criticism.

“This is not a political arrangement … there is no hostility (towards the U.S.),” Mathebula told Reuters, pointing out that South Africa has also periodically carried out exercises with the U.S. Navy.

“It’s a naval exercise. The intention is for us to improve our capabilities and share information,” she said.

German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has strongly criticised U.S. foreign policy under President Donald Trump and urged the world not to let the world order disintegrate into a “den of robbers” where the unscrupulous take what they want, Reuters reported.

In unusually strong remarks, which appeared to refer to actions such as the ousting of Venezuela’s President Nicolas Maduro at the weekend, the former foreign minister said global democracy was being attacked as never before.

Although the German president’s role is largely ceremonial, his words carry some weight and he has more freedom to express views than politicians.

Describing Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a watershed, Steinmeier said the U.S. behaviour represented a second historic rupture.

“Then there is the breakdown of values by our most important partner, the USA, which helped build this world order,” Steinmeier said in remarks at a symposium late on Wednesday.

“It is about preventing the world from turning into a den of robbers, where the most unscrupulous take whatever they want, where regions or entire countries are treated as the property of a few great powers,” he said.

On Thursday, a poll for public broadcaster ARD indicated 76% of Germans surveyed now felt the United States was not a partner that Germany could rely on, an increase of three percentage points since June 2025. Only 15% felt Germany could now trust the United States, the lowest level recorded in the regular survey of attitudes, read the report.

By contrast roughly three-quarters felt they could rely on France and Britain.

The survey found 69% of Germans concerned about security in Europe, about the same number that thought NATO partners could not rely on the protection of the United States, the strongest member of the alliance.