Human Rights Watch calls the United Nations to keep an international force in Lebanon after its peacekeepers’ mandate ends this year.
The peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon, UNIFIL, has roughly 7,500 personnel from nearly 50 countries and has been in place since 1978.
Its presence has not prevented repeated outbreaks of conflict. Southern Lebanon has seen successive wars between Israel and the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah.
In August last year, however, the UN Security Council, under US pressure, decided to end UNIFIL’s mandate on December 31, 2026.
“Pulling the plug on UNIFIL without a robust international force in place would effectively abandon millions of Lebanese civilians to an uncertain and potentially disastrous fate,” says Louis Charbonneau, HRW’s UN director.
“The peacekeepers are a crucial deterrent against attacks on civilians and human rights abuses,” he adds.
HRW urged the UN to extend the peacekeeping force’s mandate “until the security situation has improved sufficiently to consider further reducing the force.”
UN chief Antonio Guterres has said that peacekeepers will be needed in Lebanon after the current mandate expires, a suggestion likely to face opposition from the United States and Israel.
In June, he proposed three options ranging from nearly 2,000 to more than 5,500 UN personnel to monitor the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, and support Lebanon’s armed forces.
That same month, France and Italy said they wanted to launch a coalition for after UNIFIL to strengthen Lebanon’s sovereignty and prevent its territory from being “a foothold for regional escalation.”
In July, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun called for UNIFIL to stay. And Lebanon’s UN mission sent a letter, signed by 86 member states, to the UN Security Council calling for UNIFIL troops to remain with an expanded mandate.
Aoun said that if UNIFIL could not stay, there should be “an alternative force” to “assist the Lebanese army in clearing the southern regions, removing unexploded ordnance, and keeping pace with the implementation” of the framework agreement.
HRW’s Charbonneau says that “the Security Council should not leave Lebanese civilians unprotected.”
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company ADNOC says two of its vessels were attacked while transiting the Strait of Hormuz this evening, the United Arab Emirates’ state news agency WAM reports.
ADNOC says there were no injuries and the situation has been brought under control.
A young woman from central Israel who was forcibly taken by relatives to the Hebron area of the West Bank has been located and brought back in an effort involving the IDF, Israel Police and Palestinian police, Israel Police says in a statement.
Police received a report this evening of a woman in her 20s who lives in the Tel Aviv area and whom relatives had taken by car to the Hebron area. Israeli forces spread out across the area to search for her, along with Palestinian police, the statement says.
The car was eventually found leaving Hebron and stopped by IDF troops who called police to the scene, according to the statement. The woman was escorted by police while her relatives were taken for further questioning.
Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition Yashar party would win 25 seats in the Knesset while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud would win just 21 if elections were held today, according to a new poll from The Times of Israel’s Zman Yisrael sister site.
Eisenkot has led most polls in recent weeks, but Netanyahu is usually hot on his heels, tied or a seat or two behind. The four-seat margin indicates a widening margin for the centrist former IDF chief.
But overall, the poll indicates little change in the sizes of the pro- and anti-Netanyahu blocs of parties. The so-called Change Bloc of Netanyahu’s opponents would win 58 seats, short of a majority of 61 in the 120-seat Knesset, while the pro-Netanyahu parties would win 50 seats.
Arab parties would win 12 seats, split evenly between Ra’am and Hadash-Ta’al.
Behind the two leading parties, the center-right B’Yachad would win 13 while the hawkish Yisrael Beytenu would win 11 and the left-wing Democrats would win nine. All are part of the anti-Netanyahu bloc.
Following those are a succession of pro-Netanyahu parties. Shas and United Torah Judaism, both Haredi factions, would win eight each. The far-right Otzma Yehudit and Religious Zionism parties would win seven and six seats, respectively.
Three parties vying for the votes of right-wingers who are disenchanted with Likud would all receive too few votes to enter the Knesset.
The poll includes 500 respondents and was conducted on August 12-13, with a 4.4 percent margin of error.
Police say officers found a stash of weapons and ammunition in a Rahat residential compound that houses a kindergarten.
A video distributed by police shows an officer unpacking an assault rifle from a bag he pulled out of a hole in the ground in what appears to be a playground.
Police and National Guard officers raided the compound after receiving a report that a vehicle was shot at in the southern Bedouin city, police say in a statement.
A suspect in his 30s has been arrested on suspicion of involvement in the shooting, as well as on suspicion of possession of firearms and ammunition, the statement says.
It does not specify when the arrest, raid or shooting took place. Nor does it directly link the suspect to the arms cache.
מבצע "רשת ברזל" – בעקבות דיווח על ירי לעבר רכב בעיר רהט, פעלו שוטרי תחנת רהט בשיתוף לוחמי המשמר הלאומי לאיתור החשוד בביצוע הירי.
במסגרת הפעילות פשטו הכוחות על מתחם מגורים ובו גן ילדים, ובמהלך חיפוש אותרו ונתפסו במקום אמצעי לחימה ותחמושת. בהמשך נעצר חשוד (רהט, בשנות ה-30)… pic.twitter.com/IXwW8beYVD
— משטרת ישראל (@IL_police) August 13, 2026
A Hamas commander who invaded Israel during the terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught was killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza City earlier today, the military says.
The military names the commander as Jamal Mahmoud Abu Kamil.
Recently, according to the IDF, Abu Kamil was advancing attacks against troops, and he was targeted to “remove a threat.”
Earlier, the Hamas-run Interior Ministry identified Abu Kamil as Gaza’s police chief.
צה"ל ושב"כ חיסלו מפקד מארגון הטרור חמאס שפשט לשטח מדינת ישראל ב-7 באוקטובר
צה"ל תקף בהכוונת שב"כ מוקדם יותר היום במרחב העיר עזה וחיסל את המחבל ג׳מאל מחמוד אבו כמיל, מפקד מארגון הטרור חמאס שפשט לשטח מדינת ישראל בטבח ה-7 באוקטובר.
לאורך המלחמה ובעת האחרונה, המחבל קידם מתווי טרור… pic.twitter.com/iqBvFPfd5B
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) August 13, 2026
Yisrael Ganz, chair of an umbrella council for Israel’s West Bank settlements, criticizes the siege settlers have placed on Palestinian homes in the village of Qusra, speaking out against violence and saying the siege harms the settlement enterprise as a whole.
The statement, made days after the siege began, is a clear condemnation of a high-profile instance of settler violence from one of the most prominent settlement leaders, and comes as the IDF has struggled to remove the settlers from the outposts they’ve established in Qusra.
“The events in Qusra are severe and are not our way,” he writes on Facebook. “There is no place to decide, individually, to establish a hilltop [outpost] in the courtyard of a home, even in a case of an illegal home or an attempt to take over land.”
He adds, “And there is certainly no justification for violence toward bystanders or security forces.”
He continues, “There are those who have rushed to use events like these to mount a campaign against settlements overall. We cannot let them do that, but at the same time, that campaign should not blur the simple truth: What happened in Qusra is improper and is unacceptable to us.”
He calls for the continuation of settlement across the West Bank “in an orderly and correct way,” and for Israel to allow settlement construction across the territory.
The Qusra siege came amid a monthslong surge in settler violence, with near-daily attacks on Palestinians and their property in which arrests are rare and prosecutions rarer still.
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, who has defended settlements in the past, condemned the perpetrators in Qusra this morning as “Israeli terrorists.” But later in the day, he wrote on X that they were not representative of settlers as a whole.
He praises Ganz for condemning the siege.
“‘Settlers’ are not the problem in Judea/Samaria. ‘Unsettlers’ are,” he writes. “Very small minority who do great damage to Palestinian families & to Israel. Real settlers like Ysrael Ganz, Governor of Judea/Samaria condemn the actions of the few. Let’s hope the media gives attention to this & balances their stories.”
"Settlers" are not the problem in Judea/Samaria. "Unsettlers" are. Very small minority who do great damage to Palestinian families & to Israel. Real settlers like Ysrael Ganz, Governor of Judea/Samaria condemn the actions of the few. Let's hope the media gives attention to this…
— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) August 13, 2026
Yemen faces its most serious threat of a return to large-scale war since a UN-brokered truce in 2022, UN envoy Hans Grundberg warns, as the UN body says more than half the country’s population is experiencing acute food insecurity.
The warning follows an escalation in hostilities between Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthi terror group and its internationally recognized, Saudi-backed government that has raised fears of a broader return to war and a fueling of wider regional tensions.
Grundberg tells the UN Security Council that military activity has intensified along Yemen’s frontlines.
He says renewed Houthi attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden risk drawing Yemen further into wider regional confrontation, as regional trade and energy flows are already under pressure from the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz, where control is contested in the US war with Iran.
Grundberg calls on the parties in Yemen’s conflict to immediately de-escalate and work towards a robust ceasefire, saying attacks and threats against shipping as well as cross-border attacks must stop.
The security deterioration has coincided with a worsening of Yemen’s humanitarian crisis.
UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher tells the council that more than half the population faces acute food insecurity, while 6 million people are at “emergency” levels of food deprivation bordering on famine.
Both Grundberg and Fletcher call for the release of 73 UN personnel detained by the Houthis, along with workers from non-governmental organizations, civil society and diplomatic missions.
Surveillance soldiers on the Gaza border are sounding the alarm about armed terrorist activity inside the Gaza Strip, in what they said feels like a repeat of their unheeded warnings before the October 7, 2023, onslaught.
Leading up to that Hamas-led invasion and massacre, the surveillance soldiers sent alerts about terrorists training for the attack, and were infamously ignored. Some of the surveillance soldiers, who are women, said sexism was a factor in their warnings being brushed aside.
Now, Channel 12 quotes some of the unnamed soldiers who describe a feeling of deja vu as, the network says, they report watching armed terrorists operate and lay explosives in Gaza, on the Yellow Line that divides the territory between Israeli and Hamas control.
“I feel just like on October 6,” says one of the soldiers. “What’s the difference? That we’re identifying it on the Yellow Line and not on the [border] fence. That’s the difference. We’re really seeing that they know we won’t fire on them. The Gazans aren’t idiots. In the end, they’re constantly testing us and seeing if we react or not. It’s just like before October 7.”
In one quote, a soldier says she feels “helpless” in the face of the terrorist activity she sees over the border. In another comment, a soldier says she and her comrades “feel a little unnecessary. If I know that, in any case, they won’t do anything with my identification [of terror activity], what’s the point of my sitting eight hours a day and monitoring the area super-super-closely?”
Amid efforts to advance a US-backed plan to disarm Hamas in the Strip, Israel halted airstrikes in Gaza for a week before resuming them yesterday. Strikes in Gaza now reportedly require the chief of staff’s approval.
A surveillance soldier quoted by the network complains that combat soldiers stationed in Gaza are being used as “human shields.”
“In the end, the soldiers are stationed a few hundred meters from these terrorists,” one of the surveillance soldiers says of the combat troops in Gaza. “We can’t just abandon them.”
US President Donald Trump’s son-in-law and top aide Jared Kushner is slated to travel to Israel next week to meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, aiming to lean on him to allow the advancement of the Board of Peace’s plan to disarm Hamas in Gaza, a source familiar with the matter tells The Times of Israel.
Kushner will be joined by Board of Peace Gaza envoy Nikolay Mladenov, the source says, adding that the exact date of the visit has not yet been finalized.
A Board of Peace spokesperson does not immediately respond to a request for comment on the trip, which was first reported by the Axios news site.
Hamas accepted the US-backed Board of Peace’s disarmament plan two weeks ago, but its advancement has been clouded after Netanyahu came out against it. In his statement rejecting the plan, the premier said, “The IDF will not carry out any withdrawal until Hamas is disarmed. And when I say Hamas must be disarmed, I mean the heavy weapons, the less-heavy weapons, all weapons.”
Despite the rhetorical opposition to the proposal, though, Israel quietly held off on carrying out strikes in Gaza for over a week. That halt ended earlier this week, and Israel killed a Hamas military commander and, reportedly, a police chief on Thursday.
Kushner and Mladenov are planning to lean on Israel to restore its halt on Gaza strikes in addition to adhering to a series of humanitarian-related commitments that it made as part of its October 2025 ceasefire deal with Hamas, the source says.
Once those commitments are upheld, the Board of Peace believes that it will be able to approach Hamas and ask the terror group to begin handing over its weapons, the source says.
However, an Arab diplomat speculates that such progress won’t be possible until Netanyahu publicly walks back his opposition to the agreement — something that is unlikely to occur as Israel’s October 27 election approaches.
Both Kushner and Mladenov are frustrated with Netanyahu’s public posturing against the Board of Peace’s disarmament plan, the diplomat says.
Kushner hasn’t visited Israel since last year, when he brokered the October ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas.
The Shin Bet is considering providing an armed security detail for Gadi Eisenkot, the former minister and ex-IDF chief whose Yashar party is leading in most opinion polls ahead of the October 27 election, Channel 12 reports.
Eisenkot is not formally entitled to a state-issued security detail because he is not a “symbol of the state,” the report notes, but Shin Bet chief David Zini is weighing providing security for him as the election campaign heats up and amid indications that Iran is stepping up efforts to harm Israeli leaders.
Zini could alternatively seek to arrange a security detail for Eisenkot via the IDF or the Knesset Guard, the report says.
Eisenkot’s field director wrote to Zini at the end of June noting that the Yashar leader has been forced to hire private bodyguards to protect him. The TV report said these bodyguards are not armed.
The June letter also noted that Eisenkot would be particularly exposed as the election campaign gathers pace, with the Yashar leader regularly making public appearances whose details are advertised ahead of time.
A family in the Palestinian West Bank village of Qusra, where settlers have obstructed access to two homes, documents damage inside their home after IDF soldiers stayed in it for several hours today as part of an operation to evacuate the settler outposts in the area.
According to residents of the village who spoke to The Times of Israel, soldiers are still staying in some of the homes they took over this morning, and not all of the families have returned to their homes. The IDF has yet to respond to an inquiry on the matter.
חזרת המשפחות לבתיהם בקוסרה: משפחות תיעדו הרס באחד הבתים בכפר שנתפסו על ידי חיילים למשך זמן קצר וגם טענו לגניבת כסף. בנוסף, באחד הבתים הנצורים שגם כן השתלטו עליו חיילים גילה בעל הבית כשחזר שנלקח DVR של מצלמות האבטחה. פניתי לצה"ל לפני כשעתיים, נמסר לי שיבדקו אך טרם השיבו pic.twitter.com/nXwWSFtCsi
— Nurit Yohanan (@nurityohanan) August 13, 2026
A Qusra resident also tells The Times of Israel that the family claims a sum of money was stolen from them.
In addition, Qusay Abu Ridi, who lives in one of the besieged homes, was forced to leave his house for several hours. When he returned, he tells The Times of Israel, he discovered that the device recording footage from his security cameras had been taken, apparently by soldiers.
The US will reportedly swap aircraft carriers in the Middle East after reports of sailors aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln experiencing burnout after more than eight months at sea.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the USS George Washington is preparing to replace the Abraham Lincoln.
The swap, officials told the Journal, is part of a previously scheduled rotation. But it comes as lawmakers of both parties in the US have raised concerns about conditions aboard the ship.
The aircraft carrier has been deployed since November and was directed in January to the Middle East, where it has played a key role in the US war with Iran that began the following month.
It has not made a port call for 200 days, the Journal reports. There have been reports of soldiers going overboard due to the strain. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said today that reports of poor conditions on the carrier are “completely misrepresented.”
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says his B’Yachad party will not block the formation of an opposition-led government, but repeatedly declines to say explicitly that the party will endorse leading candidate Gadi Eisenkot as prime minister.
Lapid is the number-two candidate in B’Yachad, Hebrew for “together,” behind former prime minister Naftali Bennett. Bennett was previously seen as the most credible rival to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and has presented himself as a candidate for the job.
But in recent months, his poll numbers have sunk, and he has been eclipsed by Eisenkot, whose party consistently tops election polls.
In an interview on Channel 12, Lapid, who also previously served as premier, is repeatedly pressured as to whether he would endorse Eisenkot for prime minister should current polling numbers hold. He declines to explicitly say he would, but says his party will not pose an obstacle to forming an opposition-led government following the October 27 election.
Asked whether the leader of the anti-Netanyahu bloc’s largest party should become prime minister, Lapid responds, “I want to reassure everyone. We and Gadi Eisenkot will know how to form a government. It isn’t a horse race and it isn’t a competition over numbers.”
He adds, “There’s no chance in the world that Bennett and I will prevent a good, worthy, Zionist government for the State of Israel.”
The EU’s top diplomat welcomes an Israeli decision to extend the mandate of the bloc’s border assistance mission at the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt until mid-2027.
Initially set up in 2005 to help monitor the key crossing, the civilian EUBAM mission was put on standby for nearly two decades after the terror group Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007.
The Rafah crossing shut down entirely during Israel’s war with Hamas, but amid the current ceasefire, it has reopened on a limited basis since February, with monitors from the EU — which announced last week that more than 10,000 people had since passed between Gaza and Egypt.
The EU’s Kaja Kallas says Israeli authorities agreed to extend until the end of June 2027 the mandates of both the Rafah monitoring mission and an EU program that provides training for Palestinian police forces and advice on rebuilding Gaza’s judicial system.
The EU foreign policy chief calls it “an important step after months of diplomatic negotiations.”
“The missions have a clear purpose: to help make crossings safer and more effective, support Palestinian police, and contribute to stability in the region,” she writes on X.
Contacted by AFP, the Israeli foreign ministry has yet to respond.
The EUBAM monitoring mission aims to provide a neutral, third-party presence at the Rafah crossing and involves police from Italy, Spain and France.
Israel had been expected to renew the authorization for the mission’s deployment in late June, but EU-Israeli ties have come under heavy strain since the start of the Gaza war following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack.
The green light clears the way for EU states to formally extend the missions’ mandates, which they agreed in June to prolong until September this year.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
A US federal judge dismisses a lawsuit by US President Donald Trump’s administration that alleged Harvard University failed to protect Jewish and Israeli students from harassment amid anti-Israel protests following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught in Israel and subsequent war in Gaza.
In his ruling, US District Judge Richard Stearns in Boston says the Trump administration’s lawsuit, filed in March, did not plausibly show an ongoing violation of federal civil rights law on Harvard’s campus.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the United States military can keep a blockade on Iranian ports for as long as needed.
“Indefinitely, the United States Navy can maintain a blockade like that because we’ll rotate ships in and out, as we have, and we’ll continue to,” Hegseth tells reporters.
He adds that reports about poor conditions aboard aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln are “completely misrepresented.”
“We make sure every ship, every crew, every captain has everything we can provide them at every single moment. Some deployments are longer than others, and I have more respect and gratitude for those sailors than anybody. What they do in those high seas, in those austere conditions, with less port calls – it’s incredible,” he says.
Yemen’s Houthi rebels say they attacked an Aramco refinery in Saudi Arabia’s Jazan with two drones today, the Iran-backed terror group’s Saba news agency reported.
A Houthi military source says the attack was in response to what the group described as Saudi violations of Yemeni airspace and sovereignty in Saada and Hajjah provinces.
There is no immediate comment on the report from Saudi Arabia.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
A British company says it has been hired to salvage a grounded Russian shadow fleet tanker off Oman’s coast and stop an oil spill that is threatening wildlife as it reaches the country’s shoreline following its dramatic spread in recent weeks.
Satellite images show that oil from the tanker Caroline Bezengi has exponentially spread over hundreds of square kilometers during stormy weather, endangering a marine protected area. The region’s “Khareef” monsoon season peaks in July and August.
Ambrey, a UK-based maritime risk and response company, says its personnel boarded the vessel with help from the Omani air force to assess its condition before stabilizing it.
The vessel has been grounded off Qabiliyah Island in southwestern Oman following an explosion of unclear cause in early June. Its cargo has previously been estimated at more than 800,000 barrels.
Satellite images have shown that the tanker is increasingly submerged, and experts have warned of an unprecedented environmental disaster if the vessel sinks or breaks open and leaks its entire cargo.
“This is an extremely challenging situation, compounded by adverse weather conditions associated with the Khareef monsoon,” Ambrey’s global response director Ed Wollaston says in a statement. The company does not immediately have any estimates of how long the salvage operation would take or cost.
Oman’s Environment Authority said yesterday the oil spill has reached the shores of Ras Madrakah, more than 200 kilometers (120 miles) north of Qabiliyah Island. Authorities say they estimate the spill could reach more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) further north, to Masirah Island.
The Hamas-run Interior Ministry announces that Gaza police chief Jamal Abu Kamil was killed in an IDF strike targeting his vehicle a short while ago in Gaza City.
Earlier, media outlets in Gaza reported that the IDF had struck a vehicle in the city.
The reported strike is the second today, following an IDF strike in Khan Younis in southern Gaza targeting a Hamas company commander. A weeklong lull in such strikes ended yesterday, amid discussions over a US-backed roadmap for Hamas’s disarmament and the gradual withdrawal of the IDF from the territory.
عاجل| استـ…شهاد جمال ابو كميل ( أبو رياض ) مدير شرطة محافظة غـ..زة باستهداف جيب فى الشيخ عجلين بمدينة غـ.. زة. pic.twitter.com/SU3Lmaa8la
— فلسطين بوست (@PalpostN) August 13, 2026
The Bank of Jerusalem sends a message to clients saying there is no suspicion that their money has been embezzled, as rumors continue to circulate surrounding the disappearance of bank employee Mali Yahalomi and her daughter last week in Vienna.
There have been unsubstantiated allegations that a large sum of money was involved in the disappearance, causing the bank’s stock to fluctuate. The bank said in a statement earlier today that there was no connection between the bank and the disappearance.
In the message to clients, the bank says it has conducted an investigation and that customers’ accounts are secure. It says the bank’s operations have been functioning normally.
“Following a deep, systemic investigation conducted by the bank, we would like to clarify unequivocally that there is no suspicion of embezzlement of Bank of Jerusalem clients’ funds,” the message says, according to Ynet. “Clients’ funds are secure and protected, and are held and managed in accordance with the law.”
Yahalomi and her daughter, Liel, went missing in Vienna on Friday, leading to a massive search for their whereabouts. Police placed a gag order on the case this morning.
Several hours after the IDF said that troops would not stay in houses they have occupied in Qusra, one of the two besieged families in the West Bank Palestinian village says it is still not being allowed to return home.
Instead, the family of Yusuf Hassan has remained in a third, empty house in the compound, which has been obstructed by settlers since Sunday.
The second besieged family, Kusay Abu Ridi and his son, was allowed to return home after leaving it several hours ago on the IDF’s orders.
This morning, large numbers of IDF and Border Police forces entered Qusra ahead of a three-day operation to evacuate settler outposts in the area, including one blocking access to the families’ homes at the edge of the village.
Initially, the Israeli forces ordered six families in the village, as well as the two families in the besieged homes, to leave their homes.
A village resident tells The Times of Israel that in recent hours, some of the families of the village have returned to their homes, while others have not, with soldiers remaining in those homes.
Iran warns of environmental degradation in the Strait of Hormuz after an oil spill reaches its southern Qeshm island, calling for compensation from those responsible, though it appears to have been caused by an Iranian attack.
Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei says the slick “degraded the waters” of the Gulf and Sea of Oman, claiming “preliminary evidence indicates a foreign bulk carrier as the source.”
But TankerTrackers, a US-hosted website that monitors shipping movements worldwide, says the spill seemed to derive from an Iranian attack on bulk carrier Minoan Pioneer in Omani waters on August 3.
“The spillage then drifted across the strait over to Iran,” it says.
Baqaei writes on X that such spills have in “recent decades imposed trillions of dollars in damage on Iran’s coastal areas,” calling for compensation.
“Every party that benefits from commercial shipping through the Strait of Hormuz carries both a legal and a moral obligation to remediate the environmental harm inflicted,” he adds.
The spill reached Qeshm island but was “almost completely cleaned up by Wednesday evening,” says Habib Masihi, head of the environmental protection department in Iran’s southern province of Hormozgan.
He says about 32,000 square meters of coastal area have been affected, along with waters covering 90,000 square meters.
Iran has maintained control over the Strait of Hormuz since the outbreak of the Middle East war on February 28, blocking the passage of ships carrying energy exports from US-allied countries in the Gulf.
The spill comes after another slick in recent days near neighboring Oman from a tanker that ran aground.
An AFP investigation previously found the ship had been stranded for weeks near Oman’s Al-Qibliyyah island after it was damaged by explosions.
An unexploded Soviet-era bomb weighing 500 kilograms (around 1,100 pounds) was discovered yesterday in a private garden in eastern Afghanistan, police say.
More than 45,000 Afghans have been killed or injured by explosive remnants of war and mines since Soviet troops withdrew in 1989, according to the United Nations Mine Action Service.
On Wednesday, a resident found “a suspicious object in the garden area inside the yard of his house,” says Khalid Sarhadi, police spokesperson in Ghazni province.
The security forces and a demining team from the Danish Refugee Council went to the home in Sir village, Sarhadi tells AFP.
“A 500-kilogram bomb from the Soviet era was discovered, transferred to a mountainous area, and detonated safely,” the police spokesperson adds.
Soviet troops pulled out from Afghanistan after a nearly decade-long occupation, but successive wars followed.
Despite unexploded ordnance remaining across the country, the number of teams deployed to tackle the problem has been slashed by 64 percent over the past two years, Nick Pond, head of the Mine Action Section of the UN mission in Afghanistan, told AFP in June.
BEIRUT – A Lebanese official denies a Reuters report that Beirut had agreed with Israel on a shortlist of countries that could send troops to Lebanon to verify the disarmament of Hezbollah, following a similar Israeli denial of the report.
A June 26 deal brokered by the US linked the gradual withdrawal of Israeli troops from southern Lebanon to the “verified disarmament” of all non-state armed groups by the Lebanese government, including the Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah. Hezbollah, which is not a party to the agreement, has rejected disarming.
Reuters reported last week that Lebanon and Israel had agreed to a shortlist and reported on Wednesday, citing three sources, that the list included Britain, Italy, Switzerland and Indonesia as potential contributors to the verification mechanism.
A Lebanese official says today that there is no such agreement and that Beirut is still in discussions with the United States on the matter.
The Central Elections Committee issues a temporary injunction ordering Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to remove a video posted online featuring the premier meeting and taking selfies with children at the Malha Mall in Jerusalem, saying it violates campaign regulations.
Committee chairman Justice Noam Sohlberg accepted a petitioner’s argument that the video constituted a “violation of the prohibition against involving children in election propaganda” and ruled that “the video may be re-uploaded if the segments showing children in personal contact with Netanyahu are edited out,” according to a statement by the committee. Large portions of the video show the premier interacting with children.
Sohlberg’s statement added that “deliberations on the petition will continue until a final ruling is rendered, following the receipt of formal responses from the prime minister and the Likud party.”
This isn’t the first time Netanyahu has run into trouble for putting kids in a campaign ad. In 2015, he was ordered to take down an ad that showed him as a kindergarten teacher trying to keep control of an unruly class, meant to represent his former coalition partners.
The IDF confirms carrying out a strike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis a short while ago, saying it targeted and killed a Hamas company commander who was advancing attacks.
The Hamas commander was planning attacks on Israeli forces in the Strip and was targeted “to remove the threat to the forces,” the military says.
The strike is the second one to hit Gaza this week, following a weeklong pause in airstrikes amid discussions over a US-backed roadmap for Hamas’s disarmament and the gradual withdrawal of the IDF from Gaza.
Police chief Daniel Levy met today with the heads of the Central Elections Committee to discuss threats to the integrity of the October 27 election, police say in a statement.
The meeting with Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg, who chairs the committee, and with Dean Livne, the CEC director general, included a briefing about the preparedness of police to confront “core issues” including “illicit influence over the election process [and] use of artificial intelligence and technological tools to influence the voting public,” according to the statement.
“Along with preserving the integrity of the election, the right of every citizen to vote freely must be guaranteed,” the statement says, adding that police and the CEC would “act resolutely” to thwart any effort to keep voters from reaching the polls.
Palestinian media reports one dead in an Israeli strike targeting a motorcycle in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis a short while ago.
The IDF has not yet commented on the incident.
After the IDF reportedly ordered the evacuation of Palestinians from 15 homes in the West Bank village of Qusra, the military backtracks on the move, saying that no Palestinians will be moved from their homes as troops operate in the village, after settlers set up an outpost in the area.
However, residents told The Times of Israel that six families had already evacuated their homes before the army backtracked.
IDF troops have been operating in Qusra since this morning “to protect the residents and maintain security in the area,” the army says.
“The forces were instructed to allow residents of the village to remain in their homes,” the IDF says.
The army is still expected to enter uninhabited buildings in the village.
Residents of Qusra have said military officials told them the operation will last three days.
Additionally, the IDF says that troops will not operate inside the home of the Palestinian family that has been under siege for several days after settlers set up an outpost at the entrance. The outpost was dismantled, but settlers remain in the area.
Ra’am chairman Mansour Abbas and former Yesh Atid MK Yoav Segalovitz confirm that they are holding discussions regarding the Jewish politician’s potential membership in the Islamist party.
In a joint statement, the pair announce that they “met today and discussed in a good and positive spirit the possibility of Segalovitz joining the Ra’am slate in the upcoming Knesset election” on October 27 and that they “agreed to continue direct contacts in order to advance the matter.”
A former senior police officer, Segalovitz has been credited with helping reduce crime in Arab Israeli communities during his tenure as deputy minister for public security in the previous government headed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid. He submitted his resignation letter to Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana on Sunday, and announced his exit from Yesh Atid several days before that.
Rumors of his contacts with Abbas have been circulating for weeks, with a recent television poll showing that if he joined Ra’am, it would pick up two more seats, going from five to an unprecedented seven.
The move has the potential of boosting Abbas’s legitimacy as a coalition partner in the eyes of opposition parties, some of which are opposed to a potential government that includes Arab-majority factions.
Ra’am was part of the coalition during the previous government headed by Bennett and Lapid, though Bennett now rejects it as a coalition partner, saying that following the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre, Israel’s coalition should not depend on a non-Zionist party.
Abbas has repeatedly condemned the October 7 atrocities and also recognized Israel as a Jewish state. And Ra’am has taken steps to shed its Islamist image, with Abbas stating in December that the party will separate from the religious council that it is linked to and establish its own institutions.
Responding to the announcement, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit party claims that Abbas “is attempting, through Yoav Segalovitz, to gain control over the National Security Ministry” in order to ease conditions for detained terrorists, halt demolitions of Arab homes in the Negev and turn the Negev and Galilee into “Islamic territory.”
Families moved into the rebuilt West Bank settlement of Ganim this morning, 21 years after the 2005 Disengagement, and some three years after the government passed legislation annulling parts of the 2005 law under which Ganim and three other settlements in the northern West Bank were dismantled.
Several caravans have been placed in the reestablished community.
“Twenty-one years after the terrible sin of the expulsion from [Gaza’s] Gush Katif and northern Samaria, we are finally erasing the disgrace of the expulsion from northern Samaria,” Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich says, using the biblical name for the northern West Bank.
“This morning, we once again went up to the community of Ganim, one of the four communities that were evacuated,” he says, thanking “the members of the nucleus who are going up to resettle northern Samaria.”
About a hundred people attend the ceremony, including Defense Minister Israel Katz and Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council.
“Here, this is the Land of Israel. Here, we are staying forever,” Katz says at the ceremony, after arriving by helicopter.
“The era of evacuation is over — from here, we only build,” Dagan says.
In the valley below, Palestinians tell AFP they fear Ganim’s construction will make their lives harder, or even mean displacement in the long run.
Likud MK Eliyahu Revivo announces that he will not run in next week’s party primary, insisting that the “the current election system and reserved spots make it extremely difficult for MKs to secure a realistic spot on the slate once again.”
“While I could have embarked on a long and expensive political and legal battle over my personal spot, I chose not to do so,” says Revivo, who was elected to the Knesset in 2022 on the 19th spot on the Likud list, representing the Shfela region. “I wish success to all Likud members who succeed in getting elected, and especially to the new generation that will take it upon itself to continue leading the movement and the country.”
Last month, Likud’s roughly 4,500-member Central Committee approved a proposal to significantly expand Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s control over the party’s Knesset slate, granting him eight reserved slots in the top 29 places on the list ahead of the October 27 election, giving the premier unprecedented influence over more than a third of the party’s realistic slate.
The party subsequently increased the number of reserved seats granted Netanyahu when the Likud secretariat approved his decision to grant guaranteed spots on the party’s electoral list to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, Defense Minister Israel Katz and Likud Central Committee chair Haim Katz. While Haim Katz and Gideon Sa’ar’s reserved spots come out of Netanyahu’s quota, Israel Katz’s effectively increases the number of slots to be appointed by Netanyahu to nine.
The premier’s push for reserved slots was in part based on concerns that primaries could elevate candidates who are highly popular among the Likud base — including MK Tally Gotliv and ministers Shlomo Karhi and May Golan — but who internal party polling suggests are less appealing to moderate right-wing and swing voters whose support could prove decisive in the upcoming national election.
Thousands of tons of military equipment, including vehicles for use by the ground forces, recently arrived in Israel on a cargo ship, the Defense Ministry announces.
The ministry says it has completed unloading the cargo ship at Haifa Port. The equipment will then be delivered to the IDF.
The shipment included D9 bulldozers, Humvees, JLTV armored vehicles, Oshkosh trucks, and other equipment “intended to strengthen the operational readiness and continuity of ground forces,” the ministry says.
Three wanted Palestinians who were allegedly planning an imminent terror attack were captured by Israeli forces in the West Bank city of Jenin overnight, according to Israeli security authorities.
Troops of the police’s elite Yamam unit raided a building in Jenin and apprehended the trio, following information provided by the Shin Bet on their whereabouts.
The IDF, police, and Shin Bet say the three Palestinians are suspected of planning to carry out a terror attack in the “immediate timeframe.”
The stock of the Bank of Jerusalem has been erratic this morning, with sharp drops and some recoveries, amid rampant speculation surrounding the disappearance of bank employee Mali Yahalomi, and unsubstantiated rumors on social media that bank money was somehow involved.
At one point the stock lost some 12%. It has now partially recovered but is still down some 3%.
Yahalomi vanished with her daughter Liel in Vienna on Friday, and Israeli and Austrian authorities are currently probing their disappearance. A gag order had been placed on the case.
The bank says in a statement that it had conducted a review and “no findings were identified indicating any irregular activity involving the bank’s funds or assets.”
CEO Yair Kaplan writes to employees: “It should be emphasized that, aside from the fact that [Yahalomi] is a bank employee, no connection has been found between the incident and the bank.”
Eurovision organizers announce that next year’s competition will be held in Burgas, Bulgaria, on May 11, 13 and 15 — which is expected to prompt Israel to request to perform in the second semifinal.
The first semifinal of the annual song contest is slated to be held on the evening between Israel’s Memorial Day and Independence Day. Israel has in the past been granted such requests to avoid performing or rehearsing on Memorial Day — most recently in 2016 in Stockholm. The overlap is not uncommon since the competition is always held in May.
Burgas is a popular vacation destination for Israelis, and both Israir and Bluebird Airways operate direct flights to the city from Tel Aviv.
Yesterday, the European Broadcasting Union announced new rules ahead of next year’s contest which state that a country affected by “armed conflict” or a “sensitive geopolitical situation” will not be able to host the competition the following year even if it wins. The rules were widely seen as aimed directly at Israel, whose continued participation in the contest has been highly controversial, and who finished in second place both this year and last year.
Voters cast their ballots today in a local English election pitting Nigel Farage against his main challenger, a comedian dressed as a trash can, in a test of opposition to the Reform UK leader’s brand of populist politics.
After weeks of facing accusations that he failed to properly declare millions of pounds received from a wealthy backer, Farage abruptly resigned from parliament last month to seek a new mandate in a “people against the establishment” election in the seaside resort of Clacton.
While Farage aims to demonstrate his strong local support to bolster his position against the charges, the decision by major parties not to put up candidates has left him facing more than 30 rivals, including comedians and independents, in what will be the longest ballot paper in British political history.
His main rival is likely to be Count Binface, a silver cape-clad character created by comedian Jonathan Harvey, who has run against three prime ministers over the last decade to poke fun at them.
A resident of the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, who spoke with The Times of Israel says soldiers evacuated residents from 15 homes in the village and told them it was part of a military operation, apparently aimed at evacuating illegal settler outposts in the area, including the outpost that has been blocking the homes of two families on the outskirts of Qusra since Sunday.
Earlier today, soldiers arrived at the besieged families’ homes and told them they would have to evacuate their homes for three days due to a military operation. According to the families, they were moved to another part of the besieged compound and did not leave the area.
The IDF said earlier that “IDF troops are positioning themselves in homes in the village as part of defensive operations, in order to maintain a presence in the village and protect the residents.”
Iran will soon join the New Development Bank, the development lender established by the BRICS group of nations, central bank governor Abdolnaser Hemmati says in a state media report published ahead of a BRICS finance meeting in India.
Iran remains under sweeping US and international sanctions, and it has yet to reach a peace deal to end the current conflict with the US and Israel, giving Tehran added incentive to seek alternative financial channels outside the dollar system.
Iran joined BRICS in 2024 as the group expanded, in a move aimed at deepening economic ties among emerging economies, and it has since made clear its desire to become a member and shareholder of the NDB. The bank was set up by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa in 2015 to finance infrastructure and sustainable development projects. It has since expanded its membership to include the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and other emerging economies.
“The most important result of cooperation among BRICS member countries is the establishment of the New Development Bank, and our country will soon become a member of this bank,” Hemmati says, according to state media.
A Palestinian terror operative who crossed the Yellow Line in the southern Gaza Strip yesterday and approached troops was shot, the military says.
The IDF says the operative was spotted by soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade who are stationed in the area.
The operative approached the paratroopers “in a manner that posed an immediate threat,” and the soldiers then opened fire “to remove the threat,” the army says.
“A hit was identified,” the IDF adds.
A new survey by the Jewish People Policy Institute (JPPI) has found that 38% of Jewish Israelis support annexing the entire West Bank, while 35% favor partitioning the territory.
The poll found that 22% of Jewish Israelis would like annexation to be followed by a relocation of the Arab population to other countries. Twenty-one percent backed Palestinian statehood in Arab-majority areas, while 14% supported the area being annexed to Jordan.
The poll also found 58% of all Israelis, Jewish and Arab, do not believe the recently announced agreement for the disarmament of Hamas in Gaza will be implemented. Fifteen percent said it could lead to partial disarmament, 13% expect the deal to actually lead to renewed fighting, and only 3% think the terror group will fully disarm.
The survey was conducted among 748 respondents, Jewish and Arab, on August 2-5, 2026.
Kusay Abu Ridi, a resident of one of the besieged homes in Qusra, tells The Times of Israel that soldiers entered his home a few minutes ago and told him that he must leave within half an hour. He says they did not provide a reason.
Responding to a Times of Israel query on the matter, the IDF says that troops are deploying in homes in the area in order to protect the residents.
“IDF troops are deploying in homes in the village area in a defensive posture in order to maintain a presence in the village and protect the residents, including in one of the Palestinian homes whose residents are said to be under siege, in order to protect them,” the IDF says.
The military does not address the claim that the homeowners were told to leave their homes.
Settlers are still blocking the entrances to the homes for a fifth consecutive day, despite large numbers of Israeli security forces arriving at the scene this morning and demolishing makeshift structures erected by settlers in the area.
Gaza cancer patients are dying at two to three times the pace they did before the start of the war sparked by the Hamas attack of October 7,2023, as Israel blocks many from traveling for treatment after destroying the only local specialized facility, Gaza doctors say.
Israel last year blew up Gaza’s specialized cancer hospital where, it said, troops had found a tunnel used by Hamas terrorists running underneath. That means that an estimated 17,000 Gazans with cancer have no local option for chemotherapy or other advanced therapy.
Few Palestinians can afford to travel for treatment, and those who can face Israeli restrictions. The military imposes strict caps on daily crossings to Egypt, despite a 2025 Israel-Hamas ceasefire deal that requires free movement in and out.
Asked for comment, COGAT, the Israeli military agency that controls access to Gaza, says it coordinates medical evacuations with the World Health Organization. To depart, Gazans must have a valid request from a receiving country and pass “required security screening,” COGAT says.
The WHO does not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Strait of Hormuz is “under Iran’s control and management,” says Hossein Taeb, the head of Iran’s Basij paramilitary unit, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.
The remarks come a day after US President Donald Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform that the US has “total control” of the strategic waterway.
The X account of Houthi spokesperson Yahya Saree has been suspended for violating the social network’s terms.
“X suspends accounts which violate the X Rules,” a message on the platform says.
It is currently unknown what rules were broken by Saree, who had some 121,000 followers.
The military confirms that security forces demolished the structures of two illegal settler outposts in the West Bank villages of Qusra and Jalud overnight.
Both outposts were established on the outskirts of the villages, in Area B of the West Bank. The IDF says security forces dismantled structures, confiscated equipment, and detained one Israeli suspect.
Despite the IDF’s statements, settlers were still seen this morning outside two Palestinian homes in Qusra, which they have besieged since Sunday.
Meanwhile, the Golani Brigade’s 51st Battalion, which had been on a break between operational activities, was deployed to the northern West Bank area to assist with handling settler provocations and attacks against Palestinians. “The troops will carry out defensive missions and patrols in the area to maintain security in the region,” the military says.
Palestinian residents of homes besieged by extremist settlers in the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, confirm to The Times of Israel that IDF and Border Police forces arrived before dawn to once again attempt to evacuate the settlers.
The settlers have been blocking the entrance to two homes since Sunday, preventing residents from leaving. An attempt to evacuate the settlers yesterday morning was unsuccessful.
The residents say that the IDF demolished all the makeshift structures erected by settlers in the area. Nevertheless, footage filmed within the past hour shows that several settlers remain near the besieged homes, and residents say they are still afraid to leave their houses.
יום חמישי ברציפות בקוסרה. המתנחלים עדיין מול הבתים למי שתהה. (לפי עדות מוקדמת יותר פונו לכמה דקות אך לפי התיעוד הם שם כרגע) pic.twitter.com/KFHwFBjBa2
— Nurit Yohanan (@nurityohanan) August 13, 2026
The IDF has so far not issued an statement regarding this morning’s evacuation attempt.
Prominent Israeli journalist Oren Nahari has died at age 70, less than a year after announcing he had been diagnosed with ALS and days after his final radio broadcast.
Nahari served for many years as a foreign affairs reporter and news anchor on the now-defunct Channel 1, as well as on Reshet Bet Radio.
In recent years, he had been hosting the popular “A Year in an Hour” podcast and radio program about 20th century history.
Nahari also had a Saturday morning radio program, “Shabbat with Oren Nahari.” This past Saturday he announced on air that it would be his last program, saying “the disease is progressing quickly. It’s hurting my breathing, swallowing and speech systems, and I will not be able to go on broadcasting.”
“I’m not saying goodbye to the world yet, only to the studio and the microphone. To this frequency that was with me for so many years. The stories will continue to be written without me.”
A gag order has been placed on all details of the investigation into the disappearance of an Israeli mother and daughter in Vienna.
A court issued the order at the request of the police’s Lahav 433 major crimes unit. It is in effect until September 13.
Hebrew media reported yesterday that the unit was taking over the investigation, and that there were indications that Mali Yahalomi, 50, and Liel Yahalomi, 23, who were last heard from on Friday during a trip to the Austrian capital, had left their Vienna apartment willingly and were not forcibly taken from there.
The unit is handling the probe in coordination with Austrian authorities.
IDF and Border Police forces arrived on the outskirts of the village of Qusra early this morning, apparently to evacuate the outpost that has been besieging two homes in the village, a Qusra resident who lives near the besieged homes tells The Times of Israel.
Footage circulated online shows IDF jeeps and a bulldozer intended to demolish structures erected by the settlers.
برفقة جرافة عسكرية.. قوات الاحتلال تقتحم بلدة قصرة جنوب نابلس بالضفة الغربية#فيديو pic.twitter.com/gYwMTcNDoF
— قناة الجزيرة (@AJArabic) August 13, 2026
According to the resident, the forces evacuated the settlers who had established an outpost opposite the homes and demolished all the makeshift structures they had erected in the area.
The settlers who had been positioned outside the homes moved up the hill to an older outpost that was established several months ago and, according to the resident, has not been evacuated so far.
The resident also says that IDF forces arrived at the home of the Tubasi family in the nearby village of Jalud, which settlers took over three weeks ago, apparently in order to evacuate the settlers from the property.
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee says Washington has been “VERY involved” in efforts to end the ongoing settler siege on Palestinian homes in Qusra in the West Bank, asserting on X that “the IDF & Israel Police have gone at our request to remove the Israeli terrorists doing this.”
A Palestinian family living in one of the homes on the outskirts of the village has been trapped inside since Sunday, after extremist settlers set up temporary structures there, staking a wildcat claim to the land. Nobody has been able to leave or enter the home since then.
“Actions by those who carried out this horrific act of terror meant to intimidate and harass this family are disgusting. No excuse for such thuggish behavior,” he adds.
Yesterday the military made a failed effort to remove the illegal settler outpost blocking the entrance to the two Palestinian homes. The army’s plan was apparently leaked to the media in advance, prompting dozens of settler activists to swarm to the area in support of the outpost.
Kan news reported yesterday that the Trump administration is fuming over the Israeli government’s failure to crack down on rampant settler violence in the West Bank, and particularly the Qusra incident.
CIA analysts expressed skepticism to the Trump administration about Israeli intelligence regarding an Iranian assassination plot that led the US president to secretly switch planes while departing Turkey last month, according to the Washington Post.
Citing current and former US officials familiar with the intelligence, the report says that Israel told the Central Intelligence Agency about the threat, but that analysts there didn’t find it compelling.
One of the officials who spoke with the newspaper dismisses the intelligence as “Israeli-derived, not US-generated, and viewed as low confidence,” while another says that “the Secret Service has had three near misses with this president, so they’re not taking any chances.”
“They did what they had to do,” that official adds.
A former official, meanwhile, is quoted as saying the incident “fit a broader pattern of Israeli intelligence reporting that some officials see as designed as much to shape presidential decision-making as to inform it.”
The Washington Post says the White House wouldn’t comment directly, though an anonymous US official tells it in response that “as the president has said, he has faced numerous threats on his life, including ones from Iran, and every measure is taken to ensure his safety.”
“The United States Secret Service’s core mission is protecting the president, which they achieved,” the official adds.
The New York Times reported on Tuesday that US intelligence picked up “multiple streams of information” regarding the threat to Trump in Ankara: “They knew that there was a specific threat of a surface-to-air missile against Air Force One, meaning whichever plane was carrying the president, and that someone in the vicinity of the NATO summit had been spotted with a shoulder-fired missile,” the Times reported.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, the youngest person to hold the role, will leave the administration at the end of the month, US President Donald Trump announces.
Leavitt, who served Trump as a press aide during his first term in the White House, has been one of the most visible advocates of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement. The Republican president describes her as one of his “most trusted aides” in a social media post announcing her departure.
He says Leavitt “will be departing her role at the end of the month so she can spend more time with her beautiful young children and family, a decision I totally understand and respect! Karoline will now be one of my top outside advisors, and an influential voice within the Republican Party, as we work to defy History, and conclusively win the Midterm Elections.”
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and several close White House aides accompanied President Donald Trump on a military plane that he flew out of Turkey on after sneaking off Air Force One due to an Iranian threat, CBS News reports.
The report notes that as an apparent part of the deception, Hegseth was seen boarding the military plane, unlike Trump and aides Natalie Harp, Dan Scavino and Walt Nauta, who accompanied the president inside the catering truck that was used to secretly take him off Air Force One.
US President Donald Trump’s administration knocks Defense Minister Israel Katz for declaring earlier today that Israel would remain in southern Lebanon, arguing that his comments fly in the face of Jerusalem’s assurances that it has no territorial ambitions in the country.
“The US expects all parties to act in any manner consistent with the framework they agreed to, and Israel clearly stated that it has no territorial ambition in Lebanon,” a State Department official says in a statement.
“A permanent military presence in south Lebanon is not consistent with the commitments made in the framework or the long-term peace and security of both states,” says the statement sent to querying reporters, which avoids calling out Katz by name.
“The United States fully supports Lebanon’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,” the State Department official continues, noting that the framework deal that Washington brokered between Israel and Lebanon “clearly includes a conditions-based path for progressive redeployment tied to verified disarmament of Hezbollah and dismantlement of their infrastructure.”
“The Lebanese Armed Forces are implementing the first pilot zone, and the United States will continue to support full implementation of that process,” referring to the area in south Lebanon from which the IDF has withdrawn and been replaced by LAF troops.
Visiting southern Lebanon earlier today, Katz declared: “The IDF is here to stay in the security zones in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza to protect the entire State of Israel. I have instructed the IDF to take all the necessary steps to prepare for a long-term presence in the area. As the prime minister and I have made unequivocally clear, we are not withdrawing from this security zone.”
Katz also boasted again of “destroying all the houses” in certain areas, after last month he lauded having systematically flattened several dozen villages in southern Lebanon, which he said contained Hezbollah infrastructure. The comments sparked accusations of war crimes against Katz, who has intensified his rhetoric as elections have approached.
The US is reportedly fuming over the Israeli government’s failure to crack down on rampant settler violence throughout the West Bank.
There has been particular shock in US President Donald Trump’s administration over the ongoing incident in the Palestinian village of Qusra, where settlers have laid siege to a pair of homes on the outskirts of the northern West Bank town, according to the Kan public broadcaster.
While the IDF has issued statements condemning the incident, it has failed to remove the settlers from the area, and the Palestinian families have been stuck in their homes since Sunday — including an American citizen.
The siege in Qusra was discussed today by White House officials who have come to the conclusion that Israel is not taking the issue seriously.
A senior White House official is slated to hold a phone call with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to demand answers on why Jerusalem has refused to rein in the settlers who have been terrorizing the Palestinian families in Qusra, Kan reports.
The Ynet news site says serious questions have been raised into why Israel is allowing “anarchy” to unfold in the West Bank.
Netanyahu’s government has funneled millions of dollars into the illegal outposts where many of the perpetrators of attacks on Palestinians live. Thousands of Palestinians have been forced to flee their homes in recent years due to repeated settler attacks and harassment.
While the perpetrators have largely focused on Bedouin villages in Israeli-controlled Area C of the West Bank, they have expanded their attacks to Palestinian Authority-managed Areas B and A of the West Bank, as they rarely face prosecution for their actions by Israeli authorities.
The White House and the US State Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the matter.
