Asked whether he has ruled out using a nuclear weapon against Iran, US President Donald Trump says he has, calling the question “stupid.”
“I would never say that but the answer is yes. There is no reason for it… What a stupid question. They’re totally defeated militarily, and now I should use a nuclear weapon on them? What a stupid question,” Trump tells a reporter in the Oval Office.
Trump in the past has threatened to destroy Iran’s civilization, but hasn’t ever threatened to do so using a nuclear weapon.
"Have you ruled out using a nuclear weapon against Iran?"@POTUS: "They're totally defeated militarily — so I defeat them and now I should use a nuclear weapon on top of them? What a stupid question." pic.twitter.com/Gv9dXAJ9Zu
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 31, 2026
Brad Lander, a Democratic candidate for Congress in New York City and prominent Jewish ally of far-left Mayor Zohran Mamdani, downplays an incident over the weekend in which he was berated as a “Zionist” at a protest opposing a right-wing Hindu group.
Lander is a longtime leader in the city’s progressive politics and is expected to win the congressional election in his deep blue district. Lander is vocally critical of Israel, accusing it of genocide, but also acknowledges Israel’s right to exist and identifies as a liberal Zionist.
Tensions around that identity spilled out when Lander attended a protest against a right-wing Hindu group, RSS, which was holding a rally at Madison Square Garden.
Several other protesters at the anti-RSS rally berated Lander, with one shouting, “Fuck you ballsack Zionist.”
“Here’s another paid Zionist,” the man screamed. “You little Zionist bitch.”
Another group of protesters wearing keffiyehs shouted at Lander to leave, chanting, “We don’t want no Zionists here” and beating drums while Lander tried to speak.
“No Zionists. Self-described Zionist. Brad Lander supports a two-state solution, one protester said.
“Liberal Zionists are Zionists. You support genocide. This guy’s a liberal Zionist. There’s no such thing as a good Zionist. Only good Zionist is a dead Zionist,” one man shouted.
Other protesters took Lander’s side and thanked him for coming to the rally, sparking a shouting match between the two sides.
Clips of the altercation have spread on social media, leading Lander to release a video statement decrying the protesters as “a few loudmouths” and doubling down on his decision to attend the rally.
I want to address what happened over the weekend outside Madison Square Garden.
A few loud numbskulls must not deter us from building multi-faith, multi-racial coalitions for justice. pic.twitter.com/i7uLuZQT5n
— Brad Lander (@bradlander) August 31, 2026
“I won’t stop joining rallies against hate in India, in Israel and Palestine, or in New York City, because of a couple of loud numbskulls,” he says.
“I was proud to attend. As a Jewish New Yorker, I protest when I believe people are perverting Judaism to justify ethnic cleansing and exclusion, and I feel solidarity for Muslims who are doing the same,” he says, also accusing Israel of “genocide” and “apartheid.”
He acknowledges taking fire from the left for his “Zionism,” and from the right and center for his anti-Israel rhetoric.
“Those conversations aren’t always easy but I try to take them seriously, to listen in good faith and to build coalitions,” Lander says.
Tally Gotliv, a Likud lawmaker known for her inflammatory statements and conduct, accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of shunting her out of the party’s election campaign and says she’d consider defecting to another faction if the offer is good enough.
Gotliv, who was thought to be popular among Likud’s base, scored a disappointing result in the party’s recent primary and wrote in a post on X that she will end up in the 20th spot on Likud’s slate, a relatively low position.
She says she demonstrated “fierce devotion” to Netanyahu and his government, and that she “won’t agree to be a doormat.” She says the prime minister attempted a “targeted assassination” of her in the primary, calling it a “David vs. Goliath” battle.
She accuses Netanyahu of excluding her from Likud’s election campaign and claims that he won’t let her serve as justice minister or the chair of the Knesset’s influential Constitution, Law and Justice Committee.
She then floats joining another party.
“To the extent that I get a realistic offer that respects my electoral strength and my emphatic ability, God willing, to be a minister with a very important role, in the name of my voters I would seriously consider that [offer],” she writes. “So far, hasn’t been an offer like that.”
Far-right lawmaker and Knesset Health Committee Chair Limor Son Har-Melech says she will work to block an initiative to train Palestinian doctors and nurses at Tel Aviv’s Sourasky Medical Center, after likely Democratic presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel announced a $550,000 donation to the program.
“The Israeli health system is intended first and foremost for Israeli citizens. I will not allow its resources to be used to build the enemy’s healthcare system,” Har-Melech posts on X.
It’s unclear whether the Otzma Yehudit MK has the authority to shut down the collaborative program with An-Najah University Hospital in Nablus, but she says that she has written to Health Minister Haim Katz and the CEO of Sourasky Medical Center, demanding that they do so.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party accuses former police official and deputy minister Yoav Segalovitz of seeking to establish a Palestinian state after he announces a joint run with Mansour Abbas’s Arab party, Ra’am.
“Even Segalovitz won’t hide the fact that Mansour Abbas refuses to recognize Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations and is pushing to establish a Palestinian state. Together with Eisenkot, Liberman, and Yair Golan, they are going to establish a Palestinian state government,” says Likud in a statement.
Abbas recently sparked controversy when he called on Israel to recognize an “independent Palestinian state” during a speech to party delegates at their convention in Taibe.
He subsequently was reported to have reassured opposition party leaders that his belief in the Palestinian right to self-determination would not be translated into a demand for policy change during potential coalition talks after the election. There is widespread opposition in Israel to establishing a Palestinian state.
The Health Ministry says that another person is suspected of contracting Ebola after returning from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The person, who returned to Israel a few days ago, sought medical treatment after developing a fever and other symptoms.
This is the fourth suspected case of Ebola to appear in Israel since June. In all three prior instances, subsequent laboratory testing carried out by the Health Ministry came back negative, and the suspicion of Ebola was completely ruled out.
The ministry stresses it hasn’t confirmed that the man contracted the disease. It is conducting tests, and the results are expected in the coming days.
The person will be treated in isolation according to professional procedures established for high-risk infectious diseases and will be transferred to Sourasky Medical Center in Tel Aviv.
Microalgae from the Nile Delta appear to be the cause of the severe seawater turbidity that prompted officials to close five out of the country’s six desalination plants on Saturday, Alon Zask, director general of the government’s Israel Oceanographic and Limnological Research, tells The Times of Israel.
The microalgae were carried northward to Israel’s coast on the waves, he explains.
Zask notes that algae or pollution from the south are unlikely to affect the Hadera plant in central Israel, which has remained functional, or a new facility planned for the Western Galilee in northern Israel. “There, the movement of the water is a bit different,” he says.
Meanwhile, the environmental advocacy organization Adam Teva V’Din warns about what it calls the state’s “flawed and dangerous policy” of relying almost exclusively on desalination plants for Israel’s supply o drinking water.
“While the state invests billions in physical defense and cyber security around desalination facilities, there is almost complete disregard for critical threats—foremost among them marine pollution, whether natural or man-made, which can paralyze the water supply instantly, as we are witnessing today,” the NGO says in a statement.
It accuses the state of neglecting its most important natural emergency reservoir —groundwater. “Drinking water wells are being shut down one after another due to pollution without remediation efforts, while the Water Authority’s draft master plan for aquifer restoration is still awaiting government approval,” it charges.
Others, such as Gidon Bromberg of Ecopeace Israel, and public health physician and epidemiologist Prof Nadav Davidovitch, note their frequent warnings in the past about the effect that Gaza sewage dumped at sea could have on the desalination plants, whose filter membranes are sensitive.
A statement from Ecopeace says, “Despite the complex situation, full cooperation is required from the Israeli government, the [US-backed] Board of Peace, and Palestinian water authorities to urgently repair Gaza’s wastewater treatment plants, in order to protect—among other things—Israel’s own water security.”
Mansour Abbas and Yoav Segalovitz, a Jewish former police official and deputy minister, announce that Segalovitz will run with Abbas’s Arab Ra’am party in the October 27 election.
The announcement caps weeks of speculation that Segalovitz would take the historic step of joining with Ra’am. While the Arab party Hadash has long included a Jewish lawmaker, Ra’am never has.
Ra’am’s top priority is eliminating crime and violence against innocent civilians, Abbas states at a press conference in Nazareth, asserting that every Arab parent goes to sleep asking themselves, “Will my children return home safely?”
The only way to accomplish this goal is to create partnerships and “to see the other as a human being, not as an enemy,” he continues, praising Segalovitz as “an officer who has stood up to criminals his whole life without asking what their religion is” and “an honest, quiet man who doesn’t seek headlines.”
Segalovitz established the police’s Lahav 433 unit to fight serious crime and is a former commander of the police’s Investigations and Intelligence Division. He was credited with helping reduce crime in Arab Israeli communities during his tenure as deputy minister for public security in the 2021-22 government headed by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid.
Polling has shown that the inclusion of Segalovitz, a former member of the centrist Yesh Atid party who recently resigned from the Knesset, could boost Ra’am’s showing at the polls.
As for why an Arab party needs a Jewish police officer, “My answer is simple,” Abbas says. “I’m not looking for someone who is like me. I’m looking for someone who knows how to do the job. And the Arab citizen who buried his son doesn’t ask what the policeman’s religion is. He asks why no one comes.”
Addressing his decision to run with Abbas, Segalovitz says that he is guided by Zionist and Jewish values and that while he and Abbas do not intend to change each other, “it is possible to cooperate politically based on trust, recognition of difference, and commitment to joint action,” the Ynet news site reports.
“The common assertion that after October 7th it is impossible to maintain a political partnership with Arab parties is baseless and false,” he continues, adding that he wants to “break the paradigm of how political partnership is created.”
According to Channel 12, Segalovitz will not become a member of Ra’am and is running together with Abbas in a technical bloc. He will retain freedom of action in the Knesset while Ra’am will not change its constitution or decision-making processes.
The network further reports that one of Segalovitz’s top priorities will be to advance national service for Arab citizens.
Responding to Abbas and Segalovitz’s announcement, Knesset Speaker Amir Ohana claims that their joint run is only intended to “legitimize the joining of an Islamist list whose members are unable to say ‘Hamas is a terrorist organization’ to an Eisenkot government.”
“Such a government will not be able to fight Hamas, nor Hezbollah, and not the Iranian nuclear program,” he adds, calling on the public to vote for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.
Footage shows Israeli settlers raiding the central West Bank Palestinian village of Burqa earlier this evening.
Burqa mayor Sayel Kanaan tells the Palestinian Authority’s Wafa news agency that settlers broke into a home on the outskirts of the village and beat a woman and child inside.
The settlers also tried to torch a tractor, a vehicle scrapyard and a sheep pen, according to the mayor.
The IDF arrived at the scene shortly after the settlers and worked to break up the altercation, but proceeded to arrest only Palestinians, rather than any of the Israeli attackers, Wafa says.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF.
תיעוד נוסף מפלישת המתנחלים לכפר בורקה שבגדה המערבית – כעת הם חוטפים כבשים ובורחים מהכפר ????
אפס עצורים, אפס אכיפה https://t.co/g2wmPid5u6 pic.twitter.com/TwbNFa6tvn— Arbel – ארבל ???? (@ArbelReports) August 31, 2026
BREAKING: Israeli settler terrorists are attacking the village of Burqa in the West Bank right now, including armed settlers. pic.twitter.com/KOwzcZofgK
— Ihab Hassan (@IhabHassane) August 31, 2026
In a first, a senior female officer will command the IDF Artillery Corps’ 282nd Regiment, the military says.
Col. Efrat Kaykov is among dozens of senior officers who were included in a new round of appointments by IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir.
Kaykov currently commands the 213th Reserve Artillery Regiment, and she previously was deputy commander of the 282nd. She was also the first woman to command a battalion in the Artillery Corps.
Kaykov will now be the first woman to command the 282nd Regiment, a standing army artillery formation.
US President Donald Trump and senior administration officials reviewed last week a new US Central Command plan for limited strikes in the Strait of Hormuz aimed at preventing Iran from rebuilding its military capabilities there, Channel 12 reports, citing senior US officials.
The plan is intended to “mow the lawn,” as one US official puts it, by striking Iranian radar and missile capabilities and reducing the threat to oil tankers, US Navy vessels and US Air Force aircraft operating in and around the vital waterway.
The phrase “mowing the lawn” was used prior to the most recent Gaza war to describe Israel’s approach to terror groups’ military capabilities in Gaza.
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth backed the plan, though Trump has yet to approve it, the report continues, saying the latest exchange of strikes between the US and Iran could push the president toward giving the plan a green light.
Over the past two months, the US military has gradually increased its control over the Strait of Hormuz, allowing oil exports through the waterway to rise.
But CENTCOM has warned Hegseth and Trump in recent days that Iran has begun trying to rebuild its capabilities in the strait, and that limited US strikes may therefore be necessary to prevent Tehran from reestablishing them, according to Channel 12.
The White House had until recently been inclined to reject the proposal to avoid further escalation with Iran, the officials say, adding that yesterday’s Iranian missile attack on US bases in Jordan is now prompting a reassessment.
Iranian courts have issued death sentences for two women charged over anti-government protests in January, rights groups say, as Tehran ramps up executions of people arrested in the demonstrations.
The two women were sentenced in separate cases, but both were related to incidents in the central city of Isfahan, which was a hub of the nationwide protest activity that peaked on the nights of January 8 and 9.
Against the backdrop of the war with the United States, Iran has already executed 29 men on charges related to the demonstrations, according to the Norway-based NGO Iran Human Rights (IHR).
So far, no woman has been executed over the unrest, although Iran has hanged at least 16 women this year on other charges, per IHR.
Taraneh Rahimi, 20, was sentenced to death along with nine men over incidents during the protests in a square in Isfahan that saw two people killed, including a member of the security forces, the Norway-based Hengaw group and US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) say.
Other defendants in the case were given sentences of up to 36 years in prison, including Taraneh’s sister Romina, they add.
“Defendants’ lawyers did not have access to a substantial portion of the case file and objected that they had not been given sufficient time to review the documents and evidence,” HRANA says.
In the other case, Leila Abolhasani, a 43-year-old mother of two teenagers, was convicted by a court in Isfahan of setting fire to a store during the protests, the Dadban legal affairs monitor and HRANA say.
Her relatives have denied the accusation, saying she was only present at the scene and was filming the burning store, the groups say.
But she was convicted on the capital charge of “waging war against God”. The case has been sent to the Supreme Court for review.
The desalination plants Sorek A and B are returning to full operation, with those in Palmachim and Ashdod expected to return to full capacity this evening, the Mekorot Water Authority announces, following a situational assessment led by Energy Minister Eli Cohen and ministry Director General Yossi Dayan, with the Water Authority and the Mekorot company.
A statement from Mekorot says it was likely an accumulation of algae in the water that prompted the temporary shutdown of five out of Israel’s six desalination stations on Saturday. The shutdown was announced today.
The Water Authority has instructed water corporations and local authorities to stop irrigating public gardens and parks in order to regulate water demand until all the desalination plants resume full operation.
There are no directives to change domestic water consumption, and water supply to homes continues as usual.
A Hamas commander in charge of supplying weapons to the terror group was killed in an airstrike in Gaza City earlier today, the military announces.
The strike in the city’s Sabra neighborhood killed Omar Mohammed Roshdy Saraj, who the IDF says was a commander in Hamas’s “supply and maintenance company” in Gaza City.
“As part of his role, the terrorist managed the supply of weapons to Hamas terrorists in Gaza City,” the military says.
Another Hamas operative was targeted in the same strike, according to the IDF.
The IDF justifies the strike amid the ceasefire by saying that both terror operatives had been advancing attacks on troops and civilians, as well as trying to restore Hamas capabilities, “in systematic violation of the ceasefire.”
Palestinian media reported earlier that Israeli strikes in Gaza City today killed five people.
היווה איום מיידי: צה"ל חיסל מפקד אספקה ותחזוקה בארגון הטרור חמאס
צה"ל תקף במרחב צברה שבעיר עזה מוקדם יותר היום וחיסל את המחבל עמר מוחמד רושדי סראג, מפקד בפלוגת האספקה והתחזוקה של העיר עזה בארגון הטרור חמאס >> pic.twitter.com/mxdzgtcEbt
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) August 31, 2026
Maj. Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa has been officially nominated as the next chief of the Central Command, the IDF’s top position in the West Bank, the military announces.
The IDF says Defense Minister Israel Katz approved IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir’s recommendation to appoint Bar Kalifa as Central Command chief, a role he will begin in 2027, “subject to an operational situation assessment.”
Katz previously clashed with Zamir after announcing on live television that he would replace current Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth with Bar Kalifa. The remark came after panelists on the pro-government Channel 14 pressured him to replace Bluth.
Bar Kalifa currently heads the Personnel Directorate. He previously commanded the 36th Division during months of fighting against Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Additionally, Zamir announced a list of senior appointments, including three new brigadier generals and 11 new colonels, along with two brigadier generals and 23 colonels moving to new roles at the same rank.
Another 19 senior officers are being sent to studies between roles.
The list of appointments is still pending Katz’s approval.
Likely Democratic presidential candidate Rahm Emanuel and his brothers Ari and Ezekiel are donating $550,000 to fund the training of 11 pediatric doctors and 36 pediatric nurses from An-Najah University Hospital in Nablus at Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center.
The donation is aimed at opening the first pediatric healthcare facility in the northern West Bank.
Emanuel — a former Congressman, chief of staff to former US president Barack Obama, Chicago mayor and US ambassador to Japan — bills the initiative as “health care diplomacy.”
“Kids and families get great care and doctors and nurses train together learning from each other, building hopefully a lifetime of trust,” he tells Politico.
Last month, Emanuel gave a speech at Tel Aviv University that drew widespread coverage, during which he warned that Israel risks becoming a “territorial pariah” if it continues its current path under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Ada Yonath, the renowned Israeli crystallographer who won the 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry and the Israel Prize, has died at 87, according to the Weizmann Institute.
Weizmann, Yonath’s professional home for decades, says in a statement that her work helped “pave the way for the development of more advanced antibiotics and the fight against antibiotic-resistant bacteria – one of the most pressing medical challenges of the 21st century. ”
Yonath was born in Jerusalem in 1939, lost her father at a young age and grew up in a poor family, according to Weizmann. She began working before age 12. But she continued her studies and earned her PhD in X-ray crystallography at Weizmann in 1968, leading to a distinguished career and long list of awards.
President Isaac Herzog says Yonath “was among the leading researchers in Israeli scientific history” and hailed her as a “globally pathbreaking woman, a pioneer who proved that curiosity, devotion to a goal and uncompromising determination can break the bounds of human knowledge.”
A meeting was held over the weekend between aggrieved senior Fatah officials Hussein al-Sheikh and Jibril Rajoub, as the West Bank’s dominant Palestinian political party seeks to limit divisions ahead of elections scheduled for the end of the year, two sources familiar with the matter tell The Times of Israel.
Rajoub has been boycotting Fatah meetings since June, when the party’s chief, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, named Sheikh as his deputy — despite the fact that Rajoub received more votes than Sheikh during internal Fatah elections in May.
Sheikh was already serving as vice president of the PA, and the decision to name him deputy Fatah chief appeared to be part of an effort by the 90-year-old Abbas to consolidate power ahead of what is certain to be a grueling succession battle.
Sheikh has offered Rajoub the ability to maintain his role as Fatah secretary-general under his and Abbas’s leadership, but to date, the veteran Palestinian official has refrained from taking the offer, the two sources say.
The weekend meeting between Sheikh and Rajoub came days after the former held a meeting in Egypt with members of a breakaway Fatah faction headed by former PA Gaza security chief Mohammed Dahlan.
Dahlan’s faction is seeking to return to the party, but Abbas has largely resisted efforts to reconcile with him unless stringent terms are met, and the meeting in Egypt did not lead to any progress toward that end, the sources say.
Accordingly, Abbas’s circle has sought to prioritize healing other divisions within the party, recognizing that they are harming chances for a strong showing in the parliamentary elections scheduled for November 28.
As divisions remain, speculation has grown that Abbas will decide to again delay or cancel the elections, which have not been held for two decades.
As most of Israel’s desalination plants remain shut down due to weather conditions, potable water for agriculture was switched off in the south of the country, while, according to Ynet, the Tel Aviv-Jaffa Municipality is limiting water for systems such as park irrigation and beach showers and faucets.
“We are aware of the malfunction and are in ongoing contact with the national Mekorot company,” a statement says.
In addition, the Mekorot water company confirms that the Soreq A desalination plant south of Tel Aviv has resumed partial operation. Earlier today, five out of six plants were shuttered because of “severe turbidity” in seawater caused by weather conditions.
The online prediction market platform Kalshi says it has permanently banned former US Rep. George Santos after concluding the former Republican congressman likely engaged in insider trading when he bet against his attendance at US President Donald Trump’s State of the Union address.
The company announces the ban after saying its compliance department had established reasonable cause to believe Santos engaged in insider trading over his attendance at the address, when he turned a $17,839 profit on his trading activity.
The convicted ex-congressman had repeatedly discussed his intention to attend the State of the Union, which came just four months after he was granted clemency by Trump in a fraud case that led to his expulsion from the US House.
On the eve of Trump’s speech, Kalshi put the odds of Santos attending at close to 75%.
Then, minutes into the speech, Santos posted on X that he had been waylaid at the airport. Immediately, several social media users accused him of running another scheme.
Kalshi’s Compliance Department issued the lifetime ban, effective last Friday, against Santos, preventing him from accessing its platform directly or indirectly. The site is also imposing a $71,356 penalty.
It says Santos was prohibited from trading in the market over whether he would attend the address because he was capable of influencing the outcome.
Yet, it added, he placed a series of large bets between February 2 and 25 on whether he would attend the event and then began making public statements regarding whether he would attend in an effort to influence the price of the bets.
“Some of these included false or misleading statements,” the Compliance Department says as it describes its findings.
An email seeking comment from Santos on Monday is not immediately returned.
Santos, who won office as a Republican after inventing a bogus persona as a Wall Street dealmaker, was sentenced to seven years in prison after pleading guilty to fraud and identity theft in 2024. After serving just 84 days, he was ordered released by Trump, who called Santos a “rogue” but said he did not deserve a harsh sentence and should get credit for voting Republican.
Santos also lied about being Jewish.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
A Palestinian man says his family was forced to flee their home on the outskirts of the central West Bank Christian-majority village of Taybeh, just seven days after they moved in, due to attacks and intimidation from Israeli settlers.
Bashir Na’im Kuna tells Al Jazeera that the settlers have since raided the home and stolen belongings, including security cameras, in addition to cutting electricity and internet lines. Footage taken from afar earlier today shows settlers roaming around the area of the home freely.
The house is located in Area A of the West Bank, which is supposed to be under the full control of the Palestinian Authority. But under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s right-wing government, settlers have moved to expand takeovers of Palestinian lands beyond Area C which is under full Israeli control and which includes nearly all Israeli settlements.
Israeli settler terrorists expelled Palestinian Christian Bashir Na’im Kuna from his home in Taybeh, Palestine’s last fully Christian village in the West Bank, after relentless attacks forced him to flee.
Kuna spent seven years and more than 1 million shekels ($270,000) building… pic.twitter.com/XSxwfm4CRe
— Ihab Hassan (@IhabHassane) August 31, 2026
Kuna says he began building his home in 2019 and spent over NIS 1 million ($333,580) on the project.
Immediately after his family moved in last week, he says settlers began paying visits to threaten them.
In one incident, the settlers beat him and his son at the entrance of the house, Kuna tells Al Jazeera.
The settlers also brought their livestock to the yard of the home, grazing the animals through Kuna’s land in what has become a common tactic of intimidation used to coax Palestinians living near newly established illegal Israeli outposts to flee their homes.
The settlers also destroyed the crops that he planted while the house was being built, he says.
Kuna says he called Israeli authorities for assistance, but that the settlers just fled when police arrived and returned once officers left.
“We have no protection, not from anyone,” Kuna tells Al Jazeera.
The security detail around Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg, chairman of the Central Elections Committee, has been beefed up in recent days, according to Hebrew media.
The committee says in a statement that Sohlberg “is protected in accordance with security needs and the directives of the Israel Police.”
Channel 12 reports that Police Commissioner Daniel Levy ordered additions to Sohlberg’s security detail over a week ago after being briefed on new threats against the judge. The reported order comes amid significant concerns in Israel over political violence ahead of the October 27 election.
According to the network, Sohlberg’s detail has since been bolstered by a private security company.
Police do not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In June, dozens of ultra-Orthodox men smashed windows and tried to break into Sohlberg’s home in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut in protest of his opposition to Haredi draft evasion.
Police announce the arrest of a roughly 20-year-old man who allegedly kidnapped a child and took him to Bnei Brak overnight.
The boy from the central city of Petah Tikva, who is about 10 years old, was reported missing in the evening and was located in Bnei Brak alongside the suspect “following widespread searches and many actions that included the use of technological means,” police say.
The two were brought to the Petah Tikva police station and the suspect, a Jerusalem resident, was taken into custody following an interrogation, police add.
The boy’s mother tells Channel 12 that her son was playing with other children at a playground “and at some point a 19-year-old came and frightened them.”
The mother says the other children ran away but her son stayed.
The man claimed he had no cash and got the boy to help him collect money from other people, including a police officer, the mother says.
The man “bought him a pizza and played with him until the wee hours of the night. We went through very difficult hours until he was found,” says the mother.
She adds that the boy said nothing else happened.
More than 33,000 Israelis living abroad have expressed interest in returning to Israel to cast ballots in the upcoming election, Channel 12 reports, citing a new effort called Fly&Vote that seeks to facilitate those trips.
Israel allows absentee voting only in rare circumstances, so Israeli expats who wish to vote need to make their way back to Israel for election day on October 27.
Fly&Vote, a project of a US-based nonprofit called the America-Israel Democracy Coalition, says it does not endorse any party or candidate, but Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened legal action against the effort, based on the belief that Israelis living abroad are likely to support opposition parties.
The nonprofit says it is not covering the cost of the flights, but it is organizing flights for Israelis who wish to vote. The group is advertising an $1,800 direct round trip from New York City to Tel Aviv, and Channel 12 reports that it is also offering a $580 direct round trip from Lisbon to Tel Aviv.
US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent tells CNBC in an interview that the goal of US sanctions on Iran is “to create the conditions that they will want to come to the table” for negotiations.
One of the five desalination plants that shut down earlier today due to weather conditions has resumed activity, Ynet reports.
But the shutdown of all but one of Israel’s desalination facilities continues to impact the country’s water supply. Residents of the central city of Givatayim, adjacent to Tel Aviv, have been told to expect disruptions in their water supply, as well as low water pressure, and are being asked to use water only for essential purposes.
Jewish leaders hail the cancellation of an exhibition linked to the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s high-profile annual gala centered on designer John Galliano.
Galliano praised Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler and hurled antisemitic epithets at a café in Paris in 2011. He has since apologized.
He announced earlier today that he would not participate in the Met Gala, one of the city’s premier cultural events.
New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin, who is Jewish, says she is “pleased” that Galliano will not be honored at the event.
Menin is one of the officials leading the city government’s efforts to combat antisemitism, and had pressured the Met to abandon the plan to honor Galliano.
“From the beginning, I have told them that I strongly disagreed with this decision, and at this rising time of antisemitism, it had served as a gut punch to the Jewish community. This is the correct decision, as the harm and pain this was causing was simply unacceptable,” Menin says.
Jonathan Greenblatt, the head of the Anti-Defamation League, says, “With antisemitism at crisis levels, the Met honoring John Galliano at this moment was misguided, and even Galliano ultimately recognized what the Met should have done from the start.”
“This was the wrong move at the wrong moment. Timing matters,” he says.
Greenblatt’s predecessor, Abraham Foxman, had worked with Galliano following his antisemitic outburst. In 2013, Foxman said the designer had engaged in a sincere and substantive process of repentance.
“Mr. Galliano has worked arduously in changing his worldview and dedicated a significant amount of time to researching, reading, and learning about the evils of antisemitism and bigotry,” Foxman said at the time.
JTA contributed to this report.
The leaders of China, Russia and India gather with other heads of state in Kyrgyzstan for the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a group billed as a counterweight to US global influence.
Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are attending the events in Bishkek, the capital of the Central Asian nation.
Putin met separately with Xi and Modi in two of the many bilateral sessions on the sidelines of the summit, Russian state media reports. Putin affirmed to Xi Moscow’s readiness to make the visa-free regime with China permanent, and he said Russia’s relationship with India is strengthening, according to the reports.
Talks between Putin and Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian are expected tomorrow, when the official SCO sessions begin.
Russia, now 4½ years into its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, and Iran, six months into a war with the United States that began with Israeli participation, see the summit as an important platform to strengthen their relations with non-Western partners.
China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said last week that the SCO has successfully “explored a new path for regional cooperation.” Beijing has consistently promoted the idea of an alternative world order with Russia’s support.
For many SCO members, the summit will be an opportunity to show that they maintain strong ties on the global stage despite souring relations with the West.
Hostilities that flared overnight between the United States and Iran remain a “limited and contained confrontation,” a senior Iranian source tells Reuters, adding that Tehran is ready to deliver a harsh response if attacked again.
The source, who has direct knowledge of Iranian decision-making and declined to be named, says that conditions in the Strait of Hormuz “will become worse for vessels that violate” rules set by Tehran for passage through the waterway, adding that no target in the region is beyond Tehran’s reach.
A Palestinian banking crisis has been averted for the time being, after Israel’s Discount Bank agreed to postpone its plan to cease providing correspondent banking services to Palestinian financial institutions amid international pressure, an Israeli and a Palestinian official tell The Times of Israel.
Discount had informed Palestinian banks earlier this summer that it would cease providing the service on September 1, which is essential to the import and export of goods to and from the West Bank.
Following intensive negotiations with the Bank of Israel — and amid significant pressure from the US and the European Union — Discount has agreed to put off that decision until December 31.
Discount and Hapoalim are the only Israeli banks that provide correspondent banking services, which tether the West Bank to the global economy.
Hapoalim also informed Palestinian banks of a decision to cease providing the service as of October 1.
A source at one of the banks said Hapoalim was also expected to postpone its move until the end of 2026, but that a decision has not yet been made.
The banks had blamed the Israeli government for their decisions to cease providing correspondent banking services, explaining that they had been assured roughly a decade ago that a new financial entity would be established to assume the task of providing correspondent banking services to Palestinian banks.
The service has allowed Palestinian banks to process cross-border payments for commercial activity, though the two Israeli banks have long expressed concern they could be exposed to lawsuits for alleged Palestinian money laundering and terror financing.
Successive governments, however, have dragged their feet on establishing the new entity, with finance ministers instead signing indemnity waivers meant to shield Discount and Hapoalim from possible legal liability.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich began reassessing that policy as part of a host of steps aimed at weakening the Palestinian Authority, which he has called to abolish. Over the past year, he signed waivers that only lasted for two weeks at a time.
Following pressure from the Trump administration, Smotrich agreed late last month to sign indemnity waivers for Discount and Hapoalim that are in effect until the end of the year, when a government less hostile to the PA could take charge, depending on the outcome of the October 27 Knesset elections.
But by time Smotrich signed those waivers, the Israeli banks had already lost patience and informed their Palestinian counterparts that they would nevertheless stop providing correspondent banking services in the coming weeks. That decision, however, has now been pushed off for a few months.
The Israel Airports Authority says it is gearing up to complete preparations to handle peak traffic during the upcoming Jewish holidays starting in September, as more than 3 million travelers are expected to pass through airports and land border crossings next month.
The announcement comes less than two weeks after a wildcat strike at Ben Gurion Airport threw travelers into chaos on the airport’s busiest day of the year. That sparked concerns that the airport wasn’t equipped to handle traffic during the Jewish holidays.
This year, Rosh Hashanah begins on the evening of September 11, commencing three weeks of Jewish holidays during which large numbers of tourists come to Israel.
During September, about 2.5 million passengers are expected to travel via Ben Gurion Airport, about 81,000 via Ramon Airport in the country’s south, and around 60,000 via Haifa Airport in the north. Another 500,000 travelers are expected to cross via land borders with Jordan and Egypt.
“To handle the expected volume of passengers, the Israel Airports Authority has increased staffing at Ben Gurion Airport and border crossings,” the IAA says in a statement. “Additionally, there will be increased managerial presence in the terminals during the Jewish holidays.”
Earlier this month, the two-hour wildcat strike at Ben Gurion sparked extensive delays and some flight cancellations amid a dispute between the IAA and the workers’ union about staff shortages. In August, about 2.65 million passengers passed through Ben Gurion, the IAA says.
Peak travel days during the upcoming Jewish holidays are expected to be September 10, 17, 22, and 25, with 100,000 passengers traveling through Ben Gurion on each of these days across some 600 daily flights, according to the IAA. Top destinations for outgoing travelers during the Jewish holidays are expected to be Greece, Cyprus, the US, Italy, and the UAE.
The Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, a prominent US Jewish and pro-Israel civil rights group, demands the US Education Department release a list of foreign sources of funding to US universities.
US federal law requires all colleges and universities that receive federal aid to disclose foreign donations valued at more than $250,000.
The Brandeis Center says the Education Department has postponed the release of those records four times in less than two months, most recently last week.
The Brandeis Center and other Jewish groups have raised concerns about billions of dollars in funding to US universities from foreign states like Qatar, which some suggest fuels anti-Israel sentiment on campuses.
“The Department has correctly recognized that transparency around foreign funding of American universities serves an important public interest,” says Kenneth L. Marcus, the head of the Brandeis Center.
“Americans deserve to know which foreign governments, state-controlled entities, or their intermediaries are sending billions of dollars into our campuses and classrooms and what influence may accompany that money,” says Marcus, a former US assistant secretary of education for civil rights during President Donald Trump’s first term.
The Pentagon says it has secured seven-year agreements with General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems and Lockheed Martin to increase missile production.
The agreements are designed to “increase production quantities and accelerate delivery schedules for critical missile subcomponents supporting the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) and Patriot Advanced Capability-3 Missile Segment Enhancement (PAC-3 MSE) interceptor programs,” the Pentagon says.
Concern has spiked about depletion of US missile interceptor stocks amid the Iran war.
The US military says no ships have hit mines in the Strait of Hormuz, and that Iran’s claim that a supertanker struck two mines in the area is false.
Iranian state TV, citing a statement by the Revolutionary Guards, had earlier reported that a supertanker caught fire and came to a complete halt after striking two naval mines in the southern Strait of Hormuz.
???? CLAIM: Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) claims that a supertanker passing through the southern route of the Strait of Hormuz struck two mines and was brought to a complete stop. This is FALSE.
✅ FACT: No ships have hit mines in the Strait of Hormuz. This is… pic.twitter.com/spkaogBx81
— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) August 31, 2026
The Metropolitan Museum of Art is canceling its planned Met Gala exhibit centered on John Galliano, the museum and fashion designer say in a joint statement.
Galliano was at the pinnacle of the fashion world for years before he was fired as chief designer of Dior in 2011 after praising Hitler and hurling antisemitic abuse at patrons at a Paris café. He has since repeatedly apologized and attributed his comments to substance abuse.
Jewish opposition to his being honored at the Met Gala, considered by many to be New York City’s elite cultural event of the year, has grown.
“After much reflection and discussion with The Met and all those involved, I have decided, with great sadness, that it is best for the exhibition not to take place at this time. I remain fully accountable for the pain caused by my words in the past, particularly the hurt I caused to the Jewish and Asian communities, and I remain deeply sorry for it,” Galliano says in the statement.
The museum says plans for a new exhibit powering the 2027 edition of the Met Gala would be announced later.
The Committee Against Torture urges the Central Elections Committee to order National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir to remove a video he posted yesterday in which he berates Palestinian women detained at the Damon security prison in northern Israel.
In a letter to Deputy Supreme Court President Noam Sohlberg, who chairs the election panel, the NGO says the video constitutes an illegal use of public property for an election campaign, and also causes “grave harm” to the dignity and privacy of the prisoners, who are held in “conditions of abuse and torture.”
The video, in which Ben Gvir mocked the inmates’ complaints about poor living conditions, is “political exploitation of a helpless population for direct electoral gain,” the Committee Against Torture says.
It adds that the video “exploits the minister’s authority over the Prison Service,” given that photography is forbidden in the jail and lawmakers and inmates’ families are effectively barred from visiting.
According to the NGO, Ben Gvir’s use of public assets for his election campaign “continues a repeated and well-documented pattern that the CEC has already issued decisions about.”
In March, the CEC determined videos that featured Ben Gvir touring a prison and a police boat constituted illicit use of the security forces for an election campaign, the NGO notes.
Sohlberg made a similar ruling in June about Ben Gvir’s highly controversial video of himself tormenting activists detained from a Gaza-bound flotilla in May. That video sparked international outrage and condemnations from across the Israeli political spectrum.
In a separate March decision cited by the NGO, Sohlberg also fined Ben Gvir NIS 28,000 ($9,360) for illegal use of a state facility after the minister, promoting an effort to institute the death penalty for Palestinians convicted of deadly terrorist acts, filmed a video of himself at Jerusalem’s Museum of Underground Prisoners.
The NGO says that because of Ben Gvir’s repeated violations, Sohlberg should impose the maximum fine on the people who produced the video, and make clear that “high-profile visits in prisons at the height of the election campaign are forbidden” under election law.
Israeli airstrikes killed five people in Gaza City, a hospital and first responders say, while the Israeli military says it targeted terror operatives.
Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said this morning it received two bodies “following an Israeli airstrike that targeted the entrance of a residential building near the municipal park in Gaza City.”
Later, the hospital said it received three additional bodies and several wounded “as a result of an Israeli drone strike that targeted a civilian car in the Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, southwest of Gaza City.”
The civil defense, which operates as a rescue service under Hamas’s authority, confirmed the toll in the two strikes to AFP.
Images shared by the civil defense showed workers inspecting the car targeted in the second strike, which was completely destroyed and reduced to a blackened shell of warped metal, with a crowd of bystanders gathered around it.
When contacted by The Times of Israel, the Israeli military says the strikes targeted “terrorists,” with further details to be provided later.
US President Donald Trump says Washington will respond to Iran’s strikes last night on US forces in Jordan.
“We’re going to hit them hard,” Trump tells Fox News. “There will be a response.”
Hours earlier, Trump posted AI footage of an attack on Iran’s Kharg Island.
Iran launched missiles at a US base in Jordan in retaliation for Washington striking Iranian military’s assets, which the US says were preparing to drop mines in the Strait of Hormuz.
Trump says almost all of the missiles launched by Iran were intercepted.
Austrian Nobel laureate Elfriede Jelinek has condemned “land grabbing” in the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem, arguing that Western discourse on a two-state solution in the Middle East amounts to a “lie.”
The 79-year-old writer, a major German-language intellectual figure, has previously spoken out against Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. She was also among the most prominent signatories of a 2024 letter rejecting attempts “to boycott, harass and scapegoat Jewish and Israeli authors and literary institutions.”
In an essay, Jelinek, whose Jewish father survived the Holocaust, evoked her “love for the Jewish state, which also took in several of my ancestors.”
But she argued that history should not prevent criticism, calling for European Union sanctions over Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and land confiscations.
In the text, entitled “In a promised land,” Jelinek criticized talk about a Palestinian state “as though one did not know that it can never exist along the current path.”
“Yet with this unspoken lie, thought itself also collapses; it shatters against the circumstances, against the land grabbing” of the West Bank, Gaza, and Jerusalem, she wrote in the German-language text published on her website last Friday.
She added she feared “ethnic cleansing” because “where the land is lacking, people themselves become meaningless.”
She also referred to “plans” for the land, “perhaps a famous resort straight from the brains of [US President Donald] Trump and [his son-in-law and adviser Jared] Kushner.”
Trump has described Gaza as a “beautiful piece of property” and previously weighed the US taking it over, an idea he has since abandoned.
Jelinek received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2004.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan says a roadmap is being prepared for the process of other countries joining the mutual defense pact established earlier this month by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.
Fidan was speaking at a press conference after the first meeting of a key committee established as part of the “Mecca Defence Alliance,” bringing together Sunni Muslim US allies concerned by regional conflict. The three countries signed the agreement on August 7 in Saudi Arabia’s Mecca, Islam’s holiest city.
The Arab Ra’am party announces that chairman Mansour Abbas will hold a joint press conference with recently resigned Yesh Atid MK Yoav Segalovitz this evening, amid heavy speculation that the two have ironed out a deal for a joint run in the October 27 election.
Abbas and Segalovitz confirmed on August 13 that they were holding discussions regarding the Jewish politician’s potential membership in Ra’am, which has Islamist roots. In a subsequent statement last week, the pair said they had made progress toward a political alliance.
Polling has shown that the inclusion of Segalovitz, a former senior police officer who later served as deputy minister for public security, could boost Ra’am’s showing at the polls.
He intends to take the No. 2 spot on Ra’am’s ticket, a source from the Arab community close to Segalovitz told the Haaretz daily last month, which would make him very likely to return to the Knesset.
He reportedly does not intend to join any party that does not recognize Israel as a Jewish and democratic state and supports national civilian service – an alternative to the military draft – for Arab citizens of Israel.
This evening’s press conference is set to take place only days after Abbas prompted harsh criticism from opponents by stating that “the Jewish character of the state is a reality imposed upon us.”
He also recently sparked controversy when he called on Israel to recognize an “independent Palestinian state” during a speech to party delegates at their convention in Taibe.
He subsequently was reported to have reassured opposition party leaders that his belief in the Palestinian right to self-determination would not be translated into a demand for policy change during potential coalition talks after the election. There is widespread opposition in Israel to establishing a Palestinian state.
Ra’am, which was part of the coalition from 2021-2022, has worked hard recently to shed its Islamist image, but leaders of several anti-Netanyahu parties have rejected forming a coalition with him.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar accuses Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez of “lying shamelessly” about Israel to distract from domestic affairs, after the premier claimed earlier today that Russian and Israeli social networks were spreading “misinformation” about a rush of migrants to the enclave of Ceuta a month ago.
“This is a brazen lie,” Sa’ar writes on X, adding, “Continuing to spread defamatory lies will not distract from Sánchez’s disgraceful failure to manage his country’s affairs.”
Prime Minister @sanchezcastejon is lying shamelessly.
In his interview with Cadena SER today, he lied again, astonishingly accusing Israel of disseminating misleading information regarding the events in Ceuta.
This is a brazen lie.
Continuing to spread defamatory lies will not… pic.twitter.com/Jb6RxciCdR
— Gideon Sa'ar | גדעון סער (@gidonsaar) August 31, 2026
Sanchez told Cadena Ser radio this morning that “after July 30 and 31, there was a spread of rumors and disinformation” about Ceuta “from social networks linked both to Russia and to Israel, and to an ultra-right international that always uses migration not only to attack Spain, but also to attack Europe and divide it.”
Sanchez has repeatedly come under fire from Israeli officials over his harsh rhetoric and punitive measures against Israel since Hamas’s October 7 attack and the war in Gaza.
The Israel Police have issued a clarification regarding driving regulations on Israeli roads after a video circulated online of a driver asleep at the wheel of a Tesla, with the car apparently continuing to drive in autopilot mode.
The video is filmed from the perspective of a passenger in another car, who zooms in on the Tesla and remarks, “The car is driving itself. The driver is asleep.”
“Incredible,” remarks the person behind the camera, continuing to focus on the Tesla, which appears to be keeping pace with the cars around it.
יותר בטוח מ90% מהנהגים בארץ pic.twitter.com/8dSxqfduVI
— Shem Tov Heavy (@ShemTovHeavy) August 30, 2026
In a statement, police say the video is being examined by the Israel Police’s traffic division.
“The law requires drivers to hold the steering wheel with two hands, to control the vehicle, and to be alert at any given moment,” the statement adds. “This also applies to vehicles equipped with advanced drive-assistance systems.”
Tesla’s autopilot mode includes a traffic-aware cruise control setting, which, per the electric vehicle maker’s website, “matches the speed of your vehicle to that of the surrounding traffic.”
There is also an autosteer feature, which Tesla says “assists in steering within a clearly marked lane, and uses traffic-aware cruise control.”
The autopilot mode is separate from the Tesla full self-driving capability, which is not yet available in Israel.
A second Israeli has been confirmed missing in Nepal, six days after devastating floods swept through the Nepal-China border region, the Foreign Ministry says.
The ministry identifies the missing person as Katerina (Katya) Sakovich, a 41-year-old Israeli citizen, who also holds Belarusian citizenship.
“Israel’s consul in Kathmandu and the Foreign Ministry’s Department for Israelis in Distress Abroad are in continuous contact with her family and are working with the authorities and local officials in efforts to locate her,” the ministry says.
Sakovich has been living in Milan in recent years and was in Nepal as part of a trip to Mount Kailash in Tibet, and was last seen in the area of the Rasuwagadhi-Gyirong border crossing, around the time the floods began, according to the Kan public broadcaster.
משרד החוץ מאשר: האזרחית הישראלית קטרינה סאקוביץ', נעדרת מאז אסון השיטפון בנפאל. מלבדה מתבצעים חיפושים אחר אזרח ישראלי נוסף בשנות ה-60 לחייו@IWishenko
(צילום: באדיבות המשפחה) pic.twitter.com/UBpfaVnC9q— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) August 31, 2026
There is currently no update on the status of the other Israeli, a 60-year-old man, who was confirmed missing last week, the ministry tells The Times of Israel.
The death toll from the flash floods has risen to at least 903 in Nepal, while the number of people missing in the country has soared to 4,247, the country’s disaster authority said this morning.
The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel welcomes Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman’s year-long extension of a ban on hunting the European turtle dove and the common quail.
Both species have seen a drastic decline in recent years, primarily due to habitat loss, climate change, and unregulated hunting.
A statement says, “The Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel will continue to work toward ending sport hunting in Israel altogether—not just for these two species—through permanent legislation.”
Tehran still seeks a negotiated solution to its conflict with the United States, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian says, according to semi-official Tasnim news agency, following renewed clashes between the two countries.
Pezeshkian tells Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, that continued war is in no one’s interest and that dialogue and cooperation are the way to resolve existing problems.
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of tricking Washington into going to war with the Islamic Republic, calling him a “serpent.”
“In Hebrew, Netanyahu openly crows that he suckered the US Administration into a war on Iran on behalf of Israel. Netanyahu explicitly laughs about how he ‘influenced’ America through 1,000 hours of airtime on US networks,” Araghchi says in a post on X.
“In English, he praises POTUS’ leadership. Serpent,” he says.
IDF troops attempted to stop some 25 Israeli settlers who entered the central West Bank village of al-Mughayyir last night, according to a military official.
The official says troops were dispatched to the scene and dispersed the settlers, but several Palestinians then arrived and hurled stones.
They say soldiers returned fire, hitting several of the Palestinians. The Palestinian Red Crescent said last night that it had treated four who were hit by live fire.
Troops later left the scene after they saw that both the Israelis and Palestinians had dispersed, according to the military official.
The Tekuma Directorate, tasked with rehabilitating the Gaza border following the Hamas invasion on October 7, 2023, announces that the new school year in the Gaza border communities will open with 22,233 pupils, a nine percent increase from the start of the 2023 school year, a month ahead of the Hamas-led massacre.
Of that number, 4,553 are children between the ages of zero and three, 3,965 are kindergarteners, and 13,715 are pupils in grades 1 through 12.
In the city of Sderot, pupil numbers are up by 16%, the directorate says.
The growth reflects the ongoing return of communities to their homes after long periods evacuated to temporary accommodation while their communities were physically renovated and rebuilt.
Over 95% of residents of Kibbutz Kissufim went home this summer, and those from Kibbutz Holit and Kibbutz Kfar Aza started to return this month. Youngsters from Kibbutz Be’eri, still living in temporary accommodation in Kibbutz Hatzerim, are going back to study in Eshkol Regional Council schools. Be’eri residents are due to start going home in December.
Kibbutz Nir Oz, which only agreed on its funding package in August last year, will return sometime in 2027.
Yesh Atid MK Meir Cohen has decided not to run for reelection on the B’Yachad list on October 27 and will instead be appointed chairman and president of the Yesh Atid convention — the party’s central internal representative body.
In a joint statement with Opposition Leader Yair Lapid released by the party, Cohen, a founding member of Yesh Atid, says that “after 25 years in the education system as a teacher and school principal, and 23 years in politics, two terms as mayor and twice as Minister of Welfare, I am happily and proudly making room for the party’s next generation and the people who will lead it into the future.”
“This is not a farewell,” Lapid says. “Meir is my older brother. He has always been, and will always be, the person closest to me in Yesh Atid, and he will continue to be one of the party’s pillars and central figures. I asked him to run in a top spot this time as well, but Meir wanted to give an opportunity to the party’s next generation of Knesset members. This only proves, once again, what a rare person and a rare politician he is.”
An anonymous source denies reports that Israel’s water desalination plants were hit by a cyberattack, Hebrew media report, after the Water Authority announced that five out of six plants had been shut down due to “severe turbidity” in seawater.
Earlier this month, US authorities said dozens of state water systems had been targeted by cyberattacks, prompting concern among Israelis that today’s temporary shutdown was the result of something similar.
However, the source cited by Channel 12 denies that the cause for the temporary shutdown was malicious.
In an extremely rare move, the Water Authority announces that five out of six desalination stations in Israel have temporarily shut down due to “severe turbidity” in seawater caused by weather conditions.
The authority has issued instructions to reduce the supply of potable water for agriculture in the south of the country, while the Mekorot Water company seeks backup sources.
Most of Israel’s drinking water comes from desalination.
The only station currently working is in central Israel’s Hadera. Those temporarily closed are to the south — Sorek A and Sorek B, Palmachim, Ashkelon and Ashdod.
A short statement says, “Professional personnel are closely monitoring water quality and are prepared for any scenario, with the goal of returning all facilities to operation as soon as the seawater becomes clearer.”
Almost simultaneously, the Agriculture Ministry says that following interministerial work, the Water Authority Council has unanimously approved an addition of up to 15% in the supply of potable water for agriculture in the national system for 2026.
Palestinian media report two dead and several wounded in an Israeli strike in Gaza City a short while ago.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF.
Israel and Greece have signed a massive €3 billion deal, under which Israel will build Greece a multi-tiered air defense array.
The “Achilles Shield” agreement will see Israel export several systems, including David’s Sling and SPYDER, manufactured by Rafael; and BARAK MX, manufactured by Israel Aerospace Industries, according to the Israeli Defense Ministry.
The ministry says it is the “largest defense export deal in the history of Israel-Greece relations, and one of the largest in the history of the State of Israel.”
It also marks the first time that Israel will supply another country with a “complete defense array against a wide range of threats,” including ballistic missiles and drones.
The deal was signed today at the ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv by Defense Ministry Director General Amir Baram and his Greek counterpart, Ioannis Bouras.
“Under the deal, Israel will build Greece a comprehensive, multi-layered air defense array, drawing entirely on Israeli-made systems and on the extensive operational experience Israel’s defense establishment has gained during the war,” the ministry says.
The statement says that a supplementary deal, valued at €26 million, was also signed today for the sale of Rafael’s Drone Dome systems.
Additionally, the ministry says Israel will “expand industrial defense cooperation with Greece, including the transfer of knowledge and technology to the local industry.”
“This project marks another milestone in defense cooperation between Israel and Greece, a key strategic partner in the Eastern Mediterranean. Greece’s choice of Israeli technology as the backbone of its most ambitious air defense buildup program in the past decade reflects the depth of trust built between the two countries,” the statement adds.
A new survey of American Jews with strong ties to Israel and Jewish life finds widespread interest in Israel’s upcoming election, despite most respondents being ineligible to vote.
The August survey of 804 “connected” Jews by the Jewish People Policy Institute’s Voice of the Jewish People Index finds that 78% are following election news, including 35% who say they are following it “very closely.”
Only 8% of respondents said they are Israeli citizens eligible to vote.
Among those surveyed, 54% said they would prefer an opposition victory, compared with 14% who favor the current coalition. Twenty-four percent said it is not their place to weigh in.
Among Israeli citizens living abroad, 55% prefer an opposition victory, and 26% favor the coalition. About 92% said they were following the election, including 63% very closely.
The strong interest in the election “is remarkable given the ideological gap between the largely liberal connected American Jews in our survey and the more conservative Israeli Jewish public,” says JPPI President Prof. Yedidia Stern. “Many American Jews may look at Israel critically, but they do not forget that we are two parts of the same family.”
The British activist who was seen being led away by armed settlers in the southern West Bank’s Umm al-Kheir on Saturday will be deported subject to a hearing at the Population and Immigration Authority, police confirm, after a UK government spokesperson said yesterday that he would be.
The police statement claims officers from the Israel Police’s Hebron station arrested the man after settlers complained he “assaulted a minor, and other allegations,” during an “incident of friction adjacent to the settlement of Carmel.”
Previous statements by police said the activist was first detained by the head of a settlement security sqaud, then handed over to police. Footage filmed by settlers also showed the activist being held in a shed for what his lawyer says was about 30 minutes.
The settlers accuse the activist of performing an indecent act against a minor. The footage filmed by the settlers included a brief clip that showed the activist pressing up against a child who tries to enter Umm al-Kheir.
The activist was participating in so-called “protective presence” with Palestinians in Umm al-Kheir. Such activists typically camp out at vulnerable Palestinian homes to record and alert authorities to settler attacks.
Police say the activist’s deportation is part of “an effort to thwart provocative activity that includes friction and disruption” in the West Bank that cause “damage to the image of the State of Israel.”
UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has warned British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband that an alleged government plan to ban trade with West Bank settlements risks causing greater harm than good to the country’s relations with its Jewish citizens and with Israel.
Last week, British media reported that new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham is preparing to announce a complete trade ban on goods from Israeli West Bank settlements in response to Jerusalem’s plan for a major, controversial settlement expansion in the hot-button EI area of the West Bank.
The British Jewish community would view such a measure “with deep dismay at a time when the vilification of Jews, Judaism and the Jewish State has already reached unprecedented levels,” Mirvis wrote on X yesterday.
“The intended policy will not influence Israeli decision-making in the way the Government intends,” he continued. “Instead, it risks inflicting real harm across the region.”
Mirvis warned that there is a “clear danger” that a trade ban could “spiral into a de facto boycott of trade with Israel more broadly, damaging the long-term relationship between our two countries and threatening the livelihoods of tens of thousands of Palestinian workers.”
I welcomed the opportunity on Friday to meet with the Foreign Secretary, the Rt Hon. Ed Miliband. While we share fervent hopes for a future of peace and security in the Middle East, I explained why I believe the UK Government’s intended sanctions will be counter-productive and… pic.twitter.com/JlaoHnNdYn
— Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis (@chiefrabbi) August 30, 2026
Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez says that a rush of migrants to the enclave of Ceuta a month ago was still under investigation, while denouncing “fake information” spread by the “ultra-right.”
“After July 30 and 31, there was a spread of rumors and disinformation, from social networks linked both to Russia and to Israel, and to an ultra-right international that always uses migration not only to attack Spain, but also to attack Europe and divide it,” Sanchez tells Cadena Ser radio.
Yashar chair and election frontrunner Gadi Eisenkot responds to Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s support for 16 soldiers sentenced to prison time yesterday for refusing to enter combat in an ATV with a female paramedic.
“This isn’t the first time Smotrich has called for refusal,” the Yashar chief writes on X, noting Smotrich’s support for legislation to entrench broad exemptions from the draft for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students.
“There are yawning chasms between Smotrich and the values of religious Zionism’s sons and daughters, those who serve, who dedicate themselves, lovers of the nation and the land,” the former military chief says.
Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says in response to Smotrich’s defense of the soldiers: “I thought Iran was the enemy, not the inspiration.”
Protesters are marking two years since the recovery of the bodies of the “beautiful 6” hostages from a Hamas tunnel in the Gaza Strip, with a demonstration outside the Jerusalem residence of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The protesters are calling for a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the Hamas-led massacre, which Netanyahu’s government has refused to establish.
They hold large images of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Almog Sarusi, Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alex Lubanov and Ori Danino, and a banner declaring “We will not forget they could have returned alive.”
The six were abducted alive on October 7, 2023, from the Nova music festival, and were murdered in captivity in August 2024. Their bodies were discovered in a tunnel under Rafah, in southern Gaza, on August 31.
Other posters and images feature the faces of other hostages who were abducted alive and were killed in captivity, including Shiri Bibas and her infant son, Kfir.
The United Arab Emirates says it has dealt with a drone over its territorial waters coming from Iran, after Tehran claimed an attack on a US base in the Gulf country.
“The Ministry of Defense announced that the UAE Air Force responded to a UAV detected over the country’s territorial waters, approaching from Iran,” the ministry says in a statement on X.
Far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich comes out in support of the 16 IDF soldiers who were handed prison sentences yesterday for thwarting an operational mission in Gaza over their refusal to enter an armored personnel carrier with a female paramedic.
In a post on X, Smotrich says the Givati Brigade soldiers had the right to “safeguard their values and beliefs” while serving in the military, and insists that they “have the full backing” of their religious Zionist rabbis.
“I prayed and hoped with all my heart that the IDF would come to its senses and prevent the need for my intervention, but since that did not happen — as the leader of Religious Zionism, I cannot sit idly by,” writes the minister, demanding an explanation from the military.
He claims that the IDF’s decision to prosecute the soldiers for their refusal to enter the APC with a woman, and the subsequent cancellation of a mission, “will only cause damage and undermine the public’s trust in the IDF.”
The Givati Brigade’s Rotem Battalion, where the soldiers serve, is not an ultra-Orthodox unit, and therefore the soldiers serving there, under the IDF’s protocols, may have to serve alongside women.
The death toll of devastating floods on the Nepal-China border has risen to at least 903 people in Nepal, while the number of missing in the country has soared to 4,247, its disaster authority says as rescue efforts enter a sixth day.
Chinese state media earlier confirmed 16 dead and 546 people missing in Tibet following Wednesday’s disaster, taking the overall toll to 919 dead and 4,793 missing.
A supertanker caught fire and was brought to a complete halt after being struck by two naval mines in the southern Strait of Hormuz, Iran state TV reports, citing a statement by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The IRGC claims the tanker had been attempting to pass through the waterway illegally. It does not identify the vessel or provide information about its crew.
The IRGC warns that other ships violating its security rules will face the same fate and says compliance with its regulations for passage through the Strait of Hormuz is mandatory.
The Iranian military says it attacked the United Arab Emirates’ Al Minhad Air Base with drones early this morning, Iranian state TV reports, citing a statement from the army.
The army says the attack targeted locations where US forces and helicopters were stationed at the base.
It says the attack was in response to the killing of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Iranian civilians on Larak Island.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down a US MQ-9 drone over the Strait of Hormuz with air defense missiles, causing it to crash into Gulf waters, the Mehr news agency reports, citing an IRGC statement.
US President Donald Trump posts AI footage of what he says is Iran’s Kharg Island “being blown to smithereens!”
Kharg Island being blown to smithereens!!! President DJT
( TS: Aug 30 2026, 10:18 PM ET ) pic.twitter.com/PCMlBJHzne
— Commentary Donald J. Trump Truth Social Posts On X (@TrumpTruthOnX) August 31, 2026
Trump has repeatedly threatened to take over the island used to export Iranian oil, but has refrained from doing so.
In recent weeks, his administration has prioritized economic sanctions against the regime rather than further military strikes.
However, the US hours ago launched its first strike in roughly a month against Iranian military targets, which were allegedly trying to deploy mines in the Strait of Hormuz. Iranian retaliated by launching ballistic missiles at a US base in Jordan.
Less than a minute after Trump’s AI post about Kharg Island, he posts a separate clip of himself playing golf.
Jordan’s army says it intercepted eight missiles, shortly after Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps said it attacked US military targets in the Washington-allied kingdom.
“Air defense systems intercepted eight missiles that breached the kingdom’s airspace at dawn today, Monday,” reads a statement quoting the army’s spokesperson.
Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps say it launched an attack on the King Hussein and Al Azraq US bases in Jordan with ballistic missiles in response to the US attack on Larak Island, Iranian media reports.
Iran is attacking US forces stationed in Jordan, Fox News reporter Trey Yingst says, citing a US source.
There has been no significant impact so far, the reporter’s X post says, adding that nearly all incoming missiles “have been intercepted at this point.”
NOW: Iran is attacking U.S. forces stationed in Jordan.
U.S. source familiar to Fox News:
No significant impacts so far. Nearly all incoming missiles have been intercepted at this point.
— Trey Yingst (@TreyYingst) August 30, 2026
ASHEVILLE, North Carolina — The Trump administration plans to impose sanctions on another bank this week in an effort to clamp down on Iran transactions, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent says.
Bessent speaks with the Associated Press ahead of Group of 20 meetings in Asheville, North Carolina, where he will meet individually with his counterparts from the world’s major and developing economies to encourage participation in the economic isolation of Iran.
“This is going to be financial violence if we have to,” Bessent says in the interview. “We are showing people that we know who you are, you know who you are, and this has got to stop.”
Bessent had recently announced a new campaign to push countries that still do business with the already heavily sanctioned Islamic Republic to sever their financial ties or face retaliation from the United States.
Treasury’s first official action in this campaign was a proposed rulemaking on Friday, which would, if finalized, sever the Emirati branches of Banque Misr, Egypt’s second-largest bank, from access to the US financial system.
In stopping short of imposing sanctions on the Egyptian bank, the Republican administration appeared to be signaling its reluctance to penalize major trading partners that do business with Iran, including China and India, whose officials Bessent will have meetings with this week.
Bessent tells the AP he will speak to his Chinese counterparts at the G-20 meeting and “all options are on the table” in terms of sanctioning Beijing for its continued purchases. But he downplays this reluctance in the interview, calling it “a completely false narrative that the media picked up on” and insisting that China and the US agree on the need to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon.
United Airlines says it plans to resume flights between Tel Aviv and San Francisco on March 27, 2027, with three weekly flights, after halting them at the start of the Iran war.
United has previously said it plans to resume flights on its New York/Newark to Tel Aviv route on September 9, 2026, and its routes from Chicago and Washington, DC, in late October of this year.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu again claims the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, attack would not have happened as it did if security chiefs woke him up during the night, asserting that wartime protocols will ultimately substantiate his account.
Asked during his appearance on Channel 14 whether October 7 would have happened had he been awakened before the early-morning invasion and massacre, Netanyahu replies: “You want the truth? Yes. It would have looked completely different. Completely different, I think.”
“But I think that one day we will see all the protocols,” he adds, claiming that State Comptroller Matanyahu Englman was astonished after reviewing relevant material, suggesting the senior official investigating the government’s failures surrounding October 7 was sharing material with the leader of that government. “When all those protocols come out, you will know the truth,” Netanyahu says.
Returning to the question later, Netanyahu says: “You asked me what would have happened if they had woken me up — it would not have happened.”
“I’m not telling you that nothing would have happened. [Hamas] had prepared it,” he continues, blaming the failure in part on the security establishment’s prewar “conception” that Hamas was deterred, which he seeks to distance himself from.
“There was never any underestimation [on my part]…As for [Hamas’s] desire to destroy us, [to underestimate] that is such a disconnect from reality,” Netanyahu asserts.
Asked why he therefore opposes a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding October 7, Netanyahu claims the outcome of such an inquiry would be “predetermined.”
He says he instead favors “an equal one: half opposition, half coalition,” asking: “What could be fairer than that?”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares that Ofer Winter’s People of Israel party could cost the outgoing right-wing coalition seats if it runs alone in the upcoming election, urging Winter to meet with him and address the issue.
“I’m concerned that this party could do one of two things: either waste votes or cause one of the parties I mentioned to fall [below the electoral threshold],” the premier says during an appearance on the pro-Netanyahu Channel 14.
Netanyahu asserts Winter is drawing almost no support from voters backing rivals Naftali Bennett or Avigdor Lieberman and urges him to coordinate with the broader right-wing camp.
“I say to Winter: Let’s meet, let’s talk. Immediately. To prevent a situation in which a party like this brings down the bloc,” Netanyahu says, while also confirming reports that the two have already met to discuss the issue. According to those reports, Winter refused the premier’s request to coordinate.
Winter rejects Netanyahu’s comments, saying in a statement that his party is “part of the right-wing camp” but “doesn’t work for anyone — only for the people of Israel.”
He says “what endangers the right-wing camp and the entire people of Israel” are policies of the current government, which Winter views as evidence of poor security leadership, including what he describes as failures to confront Hamas, the entry of hundreds of aid trucks into Gaza and the failure to draft Haredim.
“There is only one genuine possibility for change in the right-wing camp and in general — new people who had no part in the failures of October 7,” he says.
