With days to go before a crucial general election in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu received a last-minute endorsement for re-election on Sunday from his longtime friend, U.S. President Donald Trump.

“Bibi Netanyahu has been a Great Warrior Prime Minister, and an even greater Partner for Peace in combatting the Islamic Republic of Iran,” Trump posted on Truth Social Sunday. “Please let this Letter serve to represent my Complete and Total Endorsement of Bibi Netanyahu in his upcoming Race for Re-Election as Prime Minister of Israel.”

It’s a ringing, albeit late, recommendation for someone Trump hasn’t seen eye-to-eye with in recent months over how Netanyahu’s government has navigated the Middle East conflict. Trump explained his delayed endorsement to Axios reporter Barak Ravid, saying that he’d always meant to endorse Netanyahu because they “have a good relationship, and because we’ll continue to do good things together.” 

Trump said in his post that, if Israel were to have “the wrong Leader, which would be anyone other than Bibi,” the U.S. would be left alone to face the Iran threat. The U.S. and Israel jointly struck Iran in late February, kickstarting a conflict that has not only upended global markets but also thrust Middle Eastern regional security into turmoil.

“Bibi Netanyahu has been Strong, Brave, and Brilliant in the face of tremendous opposition, including that coming from even Israel, itself,” Trump added, in apparent reference to Netanyahu’s domestic challenges, including a corruption trial, some of which the U.S. President has previously tried to influence. “Despite all of that, he has endured and, in fact, he has thrived!”

Trump’s endorsement comes just before Israelis head to the polling booths on Oct. 27, some three years after the country’s war with terror group Hamas ignited. Since then, Netanyahu has been criticized by opponents for failing to deliver on his promise of restoring regional security.

Public disillusionment with Netanyahu was among several factors that led to the formation of the Yashar! (“Straight!”) Party, whose founder, former Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot, is challenging Netanyahu for the premiership. Eisenkot’s son and nephews were killed in the war in the Gaza Strip.

It’s unclear how big of an electoral boost Netanyahu will get from Trump’s endorsement. An opinion poll from nonprofit The Jewish People Policy Institute in Jerusalem released this month shows that most Israelis still see Trump as a great friend of Israel. A separate opinion poll from JPPI, however, shows their trust in him has eroded. Eisenkot, reacting to Trump’s endorsement, said at an event in Tel Aviv that while he appreciates Trump, only Israelis will decide on their next Prime Minister. Some surveys show Yashar! is in a tight race with Netanyahu’s right-wing Likud party.

Netanyahu nonetheless thanked his “dear friend Donald” in a video posted on social media, saying he was “honored” and “humbled” by Trump’s backing, adding that the U.S. was “fortunate” to have Trump as its leader in the fight to denuclearize Iran.

Trump and Netanyahu’s fraught friendship

Even before Trump became U.S. President, he had publicly endorsed Netanyahu, though Trump, still only a TV personality in 2013, said that the Israeli politician asked for it. Since Trump was first elected, the two have been political allies and friends. Their relationship, however, has seen a number of ups and downs since Trump returned to the White House last year.

Netanyahu was the first foreign leader invited to the White House during Trump’s second-term Administration, and he has met with Trump repeatedly since. Netanyahu pushed Trump to target three key Iranian nuclear facilities in June last year. Last November, Trump sent a letter to Israeli President Isaac Herzog, asking him to pardon Netanyahu on his drawn out corruption trial, which the U.S. President deemed to be “political, unjustified prosecution.”

On Feb. 11, when Trump and Netanyahu met in a closed-door meeting at the White House, Israel and the U.S. failed to reach an agreement on how to proceed with Iran. Netanyahu has long sought to decapitate the Iranian leadership, but Trump at the time insisted on negotiations. Netanyahu, nonetheless, reportedly pressed Trump to launch the Iran operation later that month.

Since their last meeting, their relationship has markedly shifted. Trump has since tried to find an off-ramp to the war in Iran, but Israel’s actions made such peace deal talks thorny.

In March, after Israel attacked Iran’s South Pars gas field in the Persian Gulf, Trump said he told Netanyahu to stop such attacks. Then, on April 17, Trump declared on Truth Social that Israel was “PROHIBITED” from further bombing Lebanon, where it was at war with the militant group Hezbollah. Netanyahu, however, insisted that Israeli troops would remain in southern Lebanon and that security threats persisted—complicating Washington’s efforts toward peace as Tehran indicated that any deal would need to include a halt of the attacks in Lebanon.

When Netanyahu in June ordered strikes on a Hezbollah stronghold in Beirut to retaliate against the group’s alleged attacks on Israel, Trump phoned and excoriated the Israeli Prime Minister, reportedly calling him “f-cking crazy.” Asked by CNBC about the call, Netanyahu said: “We have common goals. Sometimes we have, as in the best of families, you have these tactical disagreements. We always find a way to work them out, and we do so as great friends.”

During Netanyahu’s seventh U.S. visit in July, Trump went public with his frustration. During a telephone interview on Fox News, Trump criticized Netanyahu over reports that the Israeli leader planned to share intelligence showing Iran rebuilding its nuclear program. The U.S. President said: “I don’t need Bibi to tell me that. Bibi is telling me that because he wants me to stay involved.”

Netanyahu is part of Trump’s U.N. alternative called the Board of Peace, though Israel broke again with the U.S. President by rejecting having Turkish and Qatari representatives on the board’s subpanel, the Gaza Executive Board, which is tasked with overseeing post-war reconstruction in the Gaza Strip.

Then Netanyahu rejected the Board of Peace’s 15-point plan to advance a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip and insisted that Israel would not withdraw before Hamas fully disarmed. 

In Trump’s extensive interview with TIME in late September, Trump did not answer directly when asked repeatedly if the Israeli population should give Netanyahu another term. “I can only say that I’m not involved in politics anymore,” the U.S. President said. 

But despite the lack of clear endorsement then, Trump seemed confident that “Bibi” could still win. “People have written off Bibi many, many times, just like they’ve written off me many, many times,” Trump told TIME. “I wouldn’t underestimate Bibi.”

The 16-year-old suspect who opened fire at an elementary school in Bend, Oregon, on Thursday, has been identified as Griffin J. John II. The assailant killed three children and a teacher before he was shot dead by a community member, police said. 

Bend Police Chief Mike Krantz identified the suspect in a press conference late Friday, adding that John was a former special education student at the school, Silver Rail Elementary School. He was not enrolled in the school district at the time of the shooting. 

In a press conference on Thursday, Krentz said that the children killed were ages 5, 8, and 11. A 7-year-old and a 54-year-old teacher were transported to St. Charles Bend hospital with critical injuries. As of Friday, the 7-year-old is alive and in “serious but stable” condition, according to officials.

The police also shared the names of two of the victims on Friday: 5-year-old Rhoam Summer and 25-year-old teacher Megan Lambert.

Krantz said a community member saw the suspect entering the school, pursued him inside, and shot him. Officials have not publicly named the bystander, but family members identified him as Kaylub Giamanco, 36, whose two daughters attend the school. His brother, Kyle Giamanco, told NBC News that Kaylub was on a break from work when he drove past and saw the gunman entering the building. Kyle said his brother has a concealed-carry permit.

The chief said the suspect forced his way into the school by firing at locked doors.

He fired 15 rounds and had 44 more in a backpack, the police said, adding that it would have been a much deadlier attack if not for a teacher who threw a phone at the shooter, and the bystander, a father of two students at the school, who killed the attacker.

FBI Director Kash Patel posted on social media that the agency’s Portland field office is assisting in the investigation. “We will make every resource they need available,” he added.

A vigil was held Thursday evening in the wake of the shooting.

“A school should be a safe place where children can learn and feel secure,” Bend Mayor Melanie Kebler said at the press conference. “What happened today should never happen.”

Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek said at the same conference that her heart was “absolutely broken” over the incident: “No parent should have to have this kind of day, and no community should have to live through this kind of day.” She also thanked the community member who pursued the shooter.

CNN’s analysis of incidents reported by the Gun Violence Archive, Education Week, and Everytown for Gun Safety shows that the shooting at Silver Rail Elementary marks the 36th on K-12 school grounds this year. It is the 52nd school shooting in the country this year.

What happened?

In the press conference Friday, officers provided a clearer picture of what happened during the shooting. The assailant jumped over the fence by the school’s playground and shot through the glass panes on the side doors in order to get into the building.

He then entered a mixed special education classroom and opened fire.

Krantz said that at 12:59 p.m., police received a 911 call from a person in a vehicle who reported being shot at multiple times by someone “with a long gun.” 

Multiple calls followed, reporting that a shooter had entered Silver Rail Elementary School, which is about 120 miles southeast of Portland. The school enrolls more than 400 students from kindergarten to 5th grade. 

Krantz said police directed the school to go into lockdown at 1:01 p.m. and first responding officers arrived a minute later. Upon entering the school building, Krantz said, officers confirmed that the suspect was dead and found the four other people who died from their injuries, and their families have been notified.

Officers located a Maverick 88-pump and 12-gauge shotgun near the suspect, as well as a backpack with the added ammunition.

How are politicians reacting?

Oregon’s Republican candidate for governor, state senator Christine Drazan, posted on social media that her heart was with the affected families, students, and teaching staff. “We have to commit to protecting our kids,” she added. “We have to put a complete stop to shootings at our schools. This has to end.”

Rep. Janelle Bynum, a Democrat who represents the district that includes Bend, said in a statement: “Our babies are supposed to do arts and crafts at school, not use their desks as cover from gunfire. They’re supposed to make friends, not mourn them.”

U.S. Senator Ron Wyden (D, Ore.) lamented in a statement that the victims in Silver Rail Elementary School and their loved ones faced the “awful consequences” of another school shooting in the country. He added that the “best way to honor” them is to “at long last pass common-sense gun laws that reduce the risks of more children, parents, teachers and staff forced to live in fear of similar nightmares for their schools.”

When asked about the shooting on Friday, President Donald Trump praised the bystander who shot and killed the suspect.

“We had a great hero who went in and did the business. He took care of business,” Trump said. “It’s a terrible thing, but thank goodness for a man that had a gun and knew how to use it.”