The Times of Israel liveblogged Saturday’s events as they happened.
German authorities say they have arrested five men on suspicion of involvement in an Islamist plot to drive a vehicle into a Christmas market to kill and injure people.
An Egyptian, three Moroccans and a Syrian were detained on Friday over the plan to carry out the attack in southern Bavaria state, police and prosecutors say.
The Egyptian, aged 56, allegedly called in a mosque for an attack to be carried out on a market in the Dingolfing-Landau district “using a vehicle in order to kill or injure as many people as possible”, according to the statement.
The Moroccans — aged 30, 28 and 22 — allegedly then agreed to carry out the attack while the Syrian, 37, encouraged them.
Investigators suspect “an Islamist motive” for the plot.
All the suspects were brought before a magistrate on Saturday after their arrest and are in custody.
German authorities have been on high alert for attacks on Christmas markets after a car ramming attack last year on a market in the city of Magdeburg killed six and wounded hundreds.
Two people have been killed and eight others are critically injured in a shooting at Brown University, the mayor of Providence, Rhode Island says.
PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island — Multiple people were shot in the area of Brown University, police say, as the school issued an active shooter alert and urged students and staff to take shelter during the second day of final exams.
Police do not immediately release details about the victims’ conditions or the circumstances of the shooting.
University officials initially told students and staff that a suspect was in custody, before later saying that was not the case and that police were still searching for a suspect or suspects, according to alerts issued through Brown’s emergency notification system.
The reported shooting occurred near the Barus & Holley building, a seven-story complex that houses the university’s School of Engineering and physics department. According to the university’s website, the building includes more than 100 laboratories, dozens of classrooms, and offices.
An active shooter is on the campus of Brown University, the Ivy League school in the northeastern state of Rhode Island.
“There’s an active shooter situation near Barus and Holley. Brown and Providence Police are on scene,” the school says in an emergency alert, urging people to shelter in place.
Officials initially said a suspect was in custody, before saying that was not in fact the case, and police are still searching for a suspect or suspects.
A police officer warns members of the media to take cover in vehicles because the area is still an active scene. Officers carrying assault weapons and emergency vehicles line many of the streets surrounding the engineering school.
The prestigious university in Providence, near Boston, has about 11,000 students.
Two Palestinian suspects who were driving on a road leading to the West Bank settlement of Beit El were detained a short while ago, the army says.
The IDF says that in their vehicle, troops found knives and an axe.
The two were handed over to the police for further questioning, the army adds.
Hundreds of Arab residents of Jaffa march in protest after a pregnant woman from the community was allegedly pepper-sprayed by Jews while she was driving her car in the city’s Ajami neighborhood earlier today.
Footage published by the Arab48 news site shows protesters marching to the site of the attack while chanting: “Tell the Shin Bet dogs, we’re not afraid of conflict.”
يافا: المئات يتظاهرون إثر اعتداء عنصري لمستوطنين على امرأة عربية وأطفالها ورشهم بغاز الفلفل
التفاصيل: https://t.co/88D7581jls pic.twitter.com/bHdKn1XMKv
— موقع عرب 48 (@arab48website) December 13, 2025
Speaking to the protesters, former lawmaker and Tel Aviv-Jaffa council member Sami Abu Shehadeh accuses the government of complicity in the attack, which he says included verbal abuse and spitting on the woman, according to Arab48.
“This assault is not an individual incident, but rather a new episode in a systematic policy targeting the people of Jaffa and our Palestinian nation at large,” says Abu Shehadeh, head of the Palestinian nationalist Balad party, Arab48 reports.
“We hold the police and Israeli government fully responsible for this assault, and for every assault like it,” says Abu Shehadeh. “Official silence is complicity in the crime.”
Abu Shehadeh refers to the assailants as settlers. It’s unclear if his intention is to Jews living in the West Bank, in Jaffa, or in Israel generally.
كلمة رئيس حزب التجمع الوطني الديمقراطي، سامي أبو شحادة، خلال تظاهرة منددة باعتداء مستوطنين على امرأة عربية وأطفالها في مدينة يافا
التفاصيل: https://t.co/88D7581Rb0 pic.twitter.com/4koa5u4kAb
— موقع عرب 48 (@arab48website) December 13, 2025
According to Arab48, the protest march follows a public gathering called shortly after the woman was pepper-sprayed in Jaffa.
Police said earlier that the woman was pepper-sprayed following an argument with her assailants, and that she admitted herself to a hospital for medical care. Officers were searching for suspects and did not make any arrests, according to the police statement, which did not specify the nationality of either the victim or the assailants.
Yashar party chair Gadi Eisenkot insists that Zionist opposition parties would be able to form a government if it wins 58 seats at the next election, the number of mandates the bloc is currently polling at.
“If it ends there, we can find a political solution,” he tells Channel 12’s Meet the Press.
Eisenkot is evasive when pushed by the interviewer, if this means relying on Arab-majority parties to abstain from a vote on a new government. This would mean a government would be formed with more Knesset members voting in favor of swearing in a new government than against, but not necessarily a majority of the total 120 Knesset members voting in favor.
“I don’t know” if they will support such a move, Eisenkot says, adding, “I won’t ask anything of them,” emphasizing he will not make any deals with Arab-majority parties in exchange for their support for a government.
Eisenkot says he believes there will nevertheless be a majority to replace the government after the next election.
The comments spark criticism from Blue and White chair Benny Gantz. Eisenkot left Gantz’s faction earlier this year to form his own party.
“My friend, we’ve already been in this movie or trying to satisfy a minority government,” Gantz writes on X, referring to the Bennett-Lapid government from 2021-2022, which partnered with the Islamic Ra’am party.
“It wasn’t realistic then, and it’s even more unrealistic after October 7,” Gantz writes.
“What Israel needs, as I say, is a wide Zionist government of 70 Knesset members, and not an interim government that relies on Arab parties, which would bring us [Itamar] Ben Gvir with 20 seats,” he writes.
A Palestinian who allegedly hurled an explosive device at Israeli soldiers during a raid in the northern West Bank village of Silat al-Harithiya a short while ago was shot dead, the military says.
The IDF says the soldiers of the Paratroopers Brigade’s reconnaissance unit were not hurt by the bomb.
“The soldiers responded with fire and eliminated the terrorist,” the army says.
The IDF says it killed a Palestinian terror operative who crossed the Gaza ceasefire line in the Strip’s north earlier today.
According to the military, the operative crossed the Yellow Line and approached troops of the Gaza Division’s Northern Brigade “in a way that posed an immediate threat.”
The Israeli Air Force then struck and “eliminated the terrorist to remove the threat,” the IDF adds.
Palestinian media reported earlier that one person was killed by Israeli fire in the Jabalia area.
Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee legal adviser Miri Frenkel Shor calls on lawmakers to weigh amending a clause in the coalition’s bill to regulate ultra-Orthodox enlistment, ahead of tomorrow’s discussion of the controversial legislation.
The clause in question stipulates that the defense minister may remove a specific institution from the list of yeshivas whose students receive draft deferrals should 20 percent or more of those enrolled fail to report for registration and medical examination at an IDF recruitment office as required by law.
Frenkel Mor writes to committee members that such an arrangement should not be put in the law “as all are required to do under the provisions of the Security Service Law, since all students must comply with the provisions of the law and the yeshiva must ensure this.”
Responding to the letter, committee member Moshe Tur-Paz (Yesh Atid) tells The Times of Israel that the level of evasion required to remove a yeshiva from the list is one that is “discriminatory by definition, because most Israeli citizens do not have the opportunity to study in a yeshivah.”
Frenkel Shor has previously indicated that the bill, which stipulates that full-time yeshiva students who do not engage in any other vocation can be granted yearly deferments from enlistment, violates principles of equality.
The bill has also been panned by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, who last week stated in a position paper that it would actually disincentivize recruitment, and provide for the needs of yeshivas and their draft-shunning students rather than for the manpower needs of the military.
Carmit Palty Katzir, whose brother Elad was killed in Hamas captivity, says a “moral gulf” separates Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from his detractors who are gathered at Habima Square.
“‘They sanctify death, and we sanctify life,'” she says, quoting Netanyahu’s own comments about Hamas. “Netanyahu said these words and allowed countless deaths and murders to take place.”
“We are paying dearly for this conduct,” she says.
Referring to her brother and some 40 other hostages who were killed in captivity, Palty Katzir says, “each one is an indictment” against Netanyahu.
She says President Isaac Herzog should have immediately rejected Netanyahu’s request that Herzog put an end to the criminal proceedings against the premier, who is accused of corruption.
“Netanyahu is not asking for a pardon and is not worthy of a pardon,” she says. “He is asking to stay in power, without checks or balances. President Herzog should have immediately thrown out such a request.”
Eyal Eshel, father of slain surveillance soldier Roni Eshel, slams a reported proposal that Herzog pardon Netanyahu in exchange for a state commission of inquiry into failures surrounding the Hamas of October 7, 2023 — something Netanyahu has resisted.
“There will be no pardon for Saturday, October 7,” he says. “There will be no pardon for the people who failed in a manner that brought about the debacle and disaster.”
The demonstration disperses after protest MC Kalanit Sharon, head of the Pink Front performing arts protest group, leads the crowd in singing the Hanukkah song “We’ve come to banish the darkness.” The eight-day festival of light begins tomorrow night.
Several Dutch anti-Israel groups plan to protest tomorrow outside of Amsterdam’s Royal Concert Hall, where IDF chief cantor Shai Abramson will perform a series of Hanukkah concerts after a previous ban on his performance was overturned.
Groups, including an anti-Zionist Jewish collective called Erev Rav, plan to hold alternative Hanukkah programming, including the public lighting of a Hanukkah menorah in the square across from the concert hall in protest of what they call the IDF’s “ongoing genocide” in Gaza.
In early November, the hall, also known as Concertgebouw, said it would cancel the December 14 concert due to Abramson’s appearance on the program. However, after the announcement caused an international uproar, it later reached a compromise with the event’s organizers. While the main concert on Sunday afternoon will be held without Abramson’s presence, he will perform at two private concerts later in the evening.
Erev Rav says its protest will be peaceful, “but we cannot predict how authorities or counter-protesters may respond.”
“Please assess your own risk tolerance and make informed decisions about participation,” it says in a post on social media.
DAMASCUS, Syria — US President Donald Trump says that “we will retaliate” after two US service members and one American civilian were killed in a Syria attack that the US blames on the Islamic State group.
“This is an ISIS attack,” the American president tells reporters at the White House before departing for the Army-Navy football game in Baltimore.
He pays condolences to the three Americans killed and said three others who were wounded “seem to be doing pretty well.”
The US State Department sent a formal request to over 70 countries asking for troops or money for the emerging international security force for Gaza, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Major European powers like France and Italy were approached, as were small countries like El Salvador and Malta, according to the report.
A US official tells the outlet that 19 countries expressed interest in contributing in ways that do not include sending troops.
The Trump administration is trying to piece together a force of 10,000, per the report, which could take the next year to recruit.
The US Central Command is hosting over 25 countries this week and is set to hold a meeting on the international force on Tuesday in Doha, then another in January, according to The New York Times.
Countries open to sending troops are telling the US that they only want to operate in Israeli-controlled areas, while Israel controls the Yellow Line dividing the Strip, and Hamas remains in the 47% of the Strip it controls, says the WSJ, adding that the US is still pushing them to agree to operate in the Hamas-controlled “red zone.”
US Ambassador to Turkey and special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack will meet with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday, Channel 12 reports.
Barrack is also an envoy to Lebanon, whose government Washington warned recently about the likelihood of a major Israeli military strike against Hezbollah soon if Beirut doesn’t step up its campaign to disarm Hezbollah.
Last week, Netanyahu asked to be excused from his corruption trial to attend an urgent diplomatic meeting on Monday.
Israel sent a message today to Lebanon through US mediators that “cooperation between Hezbollah and Lebanon is unacceptable,” a security official tells Channel 12. The message came after Israel received evidence that the terror group was coordinating with the Lebanese army, says the official.
Despite the evidence, Israel postponed a strike in the southern Lebanon town of Yanouh against Hezbollah infrastructure after issuing warnings to residents, giving Lebanese troops a chance to clear the site of weapons.
A man who attacked Syrian and US military personnel in the central Syrian town of Palmyra on Saturday was a member of Syrian security forces, three local officials tell Reuters.
A Syrian interior ministry spokesperson tells Syrian television channel Al-Ikhbariya that the attacker did not have a leadership role in the security forces. He did not say whether the man was a junior member.
About 1,000 people gather at Tel Aviv’s Habima Square to protest against the government.
“We are guided by the Jewish and Israeli values we were raised on, and we fight today because Ran Gvili is still in Gaza,” says the MC, Kalanit Sharon, head of the Pink Front performing arts protest group, referring to the last hostage in Gaza.
After the speech, the crowd sings the national anthem and listens to a speech by Ron Sharaf of the Brothers in Arms reservist protest group, which clashed this week with Education Minister Yoav Kisch after he declared the group’s activists would be banned from speaking in schools.
“You think they’ll stop us from speaking to students? They’ll shut one door, and we’ll open 50,” he says.
“We’re fighting for the State of Israel’s identity and existence. Will we be a Jewish, democratic, strong and secure state, or a zealous messianic one?”
DAMASCUS, Syria — Syria’s Interior Ministry says that it had warned the US-led coalition of a possible breach by Islamic State (IS) fighters, following a deadly attack on American troops in Palmyra.
“There were prior warnings from the internal security command to allied forces in the desert region,” ministry spokesman Anwar al-Baba says in an interview on state television.
“The international coalition forces did not take the Syrian warnings of a possible IS infiltration into consideration,” he adds.
Israel joins the US Pax Silica Initiative at an international conference in Washington, alongside the United States, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United Arab Emirates and Australia.
The summit, held on Friday, is “the beginning of a new golden era of cooperation on AI and supply chain security,” says the White House, bringing together the countries with the “most cutting-edge AI supply chain ecosystems.”
Israel was represented by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s economic adviser Avi Simhon, Finance Ministry chief economist Shmuel Abramzon and National AI Directorate head Erez Askal, says the Prime Minister’s Office.
“The initiative aims to build a secure, resilient, and innovative technological ecosystem across the entire value chain — from the extraction of critical minerals and energy, through advanced manufacturing and semiconductors, to AI infrastructure, data centers, and logistics,” says the PMO. “Its goal is to shape a new, sustainable economic order for the age of artificial intelligence and to ensure shared prosperity for the participating countries.”
“Israel’s accession to the US-led Pax Silica Initiative is a mark of distinction for Israel and for Israel’s high-tech industry,” says Simhon in a statement, “which is regarded as a global leader in innovation and artificial intelligence.”
A woman was pepper-sprayed while driving her family in Jaffa, police say.
According to police, the woman was arguing with a group of suspects when they sprayed her and fled.
The driver admitted herself to hospital to receive medical care, police say.
Two US Army soldiers and a civilian interpreter were killed in an Islamic State attack earlier today in Palmyra, Syria, where they were supporting counterterrorism operations, the Pentagon says.
According to the US military’s Central Command, the interpreter was a US citizen.
Three others were wounded, Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell says. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth says the attacker was killed by partner forces.
The IDF confirms it has postponed its planned strike in southern Lebanon, after the Lebanese army began to search the alleged Hezbollah site.
In a statement, Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman, says that after the army issued a warning to evacuate a building in the town of Yanouh, the Lebanese army requested, via a ceasefire monitoring mechanism, to “access the site that had been implicated and to address the violation of the agreement.”
“The IDF decided to allow this, and accordingly, the strike was postponed,” Adraee says.
“The IDF is continuously monitoring the target and remains in contact with the mechanism,” he adds.
More than three hours after the IDF issued an evacuation warning for an alleged Hezbollah site in southern Lebanon ahead of an airstrike, the target has not yet been hit.
According to Lebanese media, following the Israeli warning, the Lebanese army and UNIFIL forces arrived at the location to search it.
As of now, it appears that the strike is postponed due to the Lebanese army activity at the site.
مراسلة «الأخبار»: بناءً على طلب من «الميكانيزم» فتّشت قوة من الجيش اللبناني و«اليونيفيل» منزلاً غير مأهول في يانوح يدّعي العدو بأنه يحتوي على أسلحة لكنه لم يتمّ العثور على أي سلاح، ولما همّت القوة بالمغادرة، حامت مسيّرة إسرائيلية فوق المكان وتلقت «اليونيفيل» طلباً بإعادة التفتيش،… pic.twitter.com/GocO7e63xj
— جريدة الأخبار – Al-Akhbar (@AlakhbarNews) December 13, 2025
The IDF confirms killing top Hamas commander Raad Saad in an airstrike in Gaza City this afternoon.
Saad, head of the terror group’s weapons manufacturing headquarters and one of the architects of Hamas’s October 7 onslaught, was one of the few remaining members of Hamas’s top military brass in the Gaza Strip.
In a statement, the IDF says that in recent weeks, “repeated attempts by the Hamas terror organization to carry out terrorist attacks were identified, including the use of explosive devices against IDF forces, actions that constitute a blatant violation of the agreement.” The military notes that this morning, two reservists were injured by an explosive device in the Strip’s south.
“In parallel, the IDF identified attempts by the organization to restore and build up its capabilities,” the military says, adding that Saad “led Hamas’s force buildup, and his elimination constitutes a significant blow to the organization’s ability to rearm.”
The military publishes footage of the strike.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz in a joint statement say that top Hamas commander Raad Saad was killed in response to the injury of two troops by an explosive in southern Gaza today.
“In response to the activation of a Hamas explosive device that wounded our forces today in the Yellow Zone of the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz instructed the elimination of the terrorist Raad Saad,” the statement reads.
Netanyahu and Katz say that Saad “was one of the architects of the October 7 massacre and in recent days had been engaged in restoring the terror organization and in planning and carrying out attacks against Israel, as well as rebuilding an attack force, in blatant violation of the ceasefire rules and Hamas’s commitments to respect President [Donald] Trump’s plan.”
“Instead of advancing disarmament, he was engaged in rearmament for acts of terror,” they say.
Netanyahu and Katz add that “anyone who raises a hand against Israel and harms IDF soldiers, his hand will be cut off in Gaza and anywhere else.”
Ukraine received 114 prisoners released by Belarus today, Kyiv’s POW coordination center says, including Ukrainian citizens accused of working for Ukrainian intelligence and Belarusian political prisoners.
The center’s statement says that the released captives would receive medical attention, and those Belarusian citizens who so wished would subsequently be transported to Poland or Lithuania.
The center posts photos appearing to show the released captives boarding a bus, with some of them smiling and embracing.
Responding to the IDF strike on one of its key commanders earlier today in Gaza City, Hamas — referring to Israel — says “this crime confirms again that the occupation is deliberately seeking to undermine the ceasefire agreement and thwart it with continuously escalating violations.”
An Israeli official said earlier that the strike killed top Hamas commander Raad Saad.
Israel “bears the full responsibility for the results of its crimes against our Palestinian nation,” Hamas says.
It demands that “mediators and countries that are guarantors of the agreement assume their responsibility surrounding these blatant violations and move urgently to restrain” Israel.
Top Hamas commander Raad Saad is confirmed to have been killed in an airstrike in Gaza City this afternoon, an Israeli official says.
Saad was targeted while driving along the Rashid coastal road. He was killed alongside three others. The strike marks an apparent Israeli violation of the ceasefire.
Saad served as chief of Hamas’s weapons manufacturing headquarters and is considered only second to the terror group’s latest military chief, Izz al-Din Haddad.
According to Axios’s Barak Ravid, Israel did not inform the US in advance of the strike.
Two reservist soldiers were lightly wounded by an explosive device in the southern Gaza Strip earlier today, the military says.
According to the IDF, the bomb exploded while soldiers were working to clear the area of terror infrastructure.
They were taken to a hospital and their families were notified, the army says.
The IDF does not link the incident to the strike on top Hamas commander Raad Saad in Gaza City — which took place several hours later.
The military said the target of the strike “had been involved in efforts to restore and manufacture the group’s weapons,” but has not explicitly claimed that his actions are a violation of the truce.
Disney has dismissed claims that it used pro-Palestinian symbolism in a recent Christmas advertisement, after social media users pointed out a brief shot of a small watermelon sticker on a woman’s laptop in the clip.
The sticker appears for less than two seconds in the 90-second advertisement for the Disney+ streaming platform, which was released three weeks ago as the international media giant began its holiday campaign.
The watermelon has been used as a pro-Palestinian symbol for decades, as its colors — red, black, white and green — match the colors of the Palestinian flag. It has become an internationally recognized symbol of the Palestinian cause since the Israel-Hamas war began after the October 7, 2023 attacks.
After the commercial was aired, social media users jumped on the watermelon sticker’s brief appearance, claiming that Disney included it as subliminal pro-Palestinian messaging aimed at a family audience.
The controversial advertisement prompted an article in the UK’s The Telegraph titled “The secret pro-Palestine message in Disney’s Christmas advert,” which quoted a conservative MP as saying that Disney has “serious questions to answer” for airing the clip.
“Either they have screwed up royally on quality control or the woke agenda runs so deep they don’t even notice when they’re spreading anti-Jewish propaganda,” MP Richard Holden told the outlet.
Disney has denied that the use of the watermelon sticker was in any way a pro-Palestinian message, saying: “The sticker shown in the advert was chosen randomly and is not a political statement.”
The IDF confirms in a statement that it targeted a “key” Hamas member in Gaza City a short while ago.
According to Israeli officials, the target was top Hamas commander Raad Saad.
The military says that in recent months, the target of the strike “had been involved in efforts to restore and manufacture the group’s weapons.”
Further details will be provided later, the IDF adds.
The strike on the Hamas-controlled side of the Gaza ceasefire line killed at least three, according to Palestinian media.
Saad is considered to be among the few remaining members of Hamas’s top military brass in the Gaza Strip.
He previously served as chief of the terror group’s operations division.
Saad was believed by Israel to be at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital when the military raided the medical center in March 2024, although he apparently managed to flee at the time.
He has survived several Israeli assassination attempts during the war, including in June 2024.
Palestinian media reports at least three dead in an Israeli airstrike targeting a vehicle in western Gaza City.
The rare strike takes place on the Hamas-controlled side of the Gaza ceasefire line.
An Israeli official confirms the strike targeted a prominent Hamas figure, though the IDF has not yet commented on the incident.
The IDF issues a warning to residents of the southern Lebanon town of Yanouh ahead of airstrikes against Hezbollah infrastructure.
“The IDF will attack military infrastructure belonging to the Hezbollah terror organization in response to its prohibited attempts to rebuild its activities in the area,” warns Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesman.
With the announcement, the IDF publishes a map showing the location of a site that is going to be targeted.
“You are located near buildings used by Hezbollah, and for your own safety you must evacuate them immediately and move at least 300 meters away,” Adraee says.
#عاجل ‼️ إنذار عاجل إلى سكان جنوب لبنان وتحديدًا في قرية يانوح
????سيهاجم جيش الدفاع على المدى الزمني القريب بنى تحتية عسكرية تابعة لحزب الله الإرهابي وذلك للتعامل مع المحاولات المحظورة التي يقوم بها حزب الله لإعادة إعمار أنشطته في المنطقة
????نحث سكان المبنى المحدد بالأحمر في… pic.twitter.com/1MHfzpwM6J— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) December 13, 2025
A Palestinian was seriously wounded by IDF fire in Gaza City’s al-Sudaniya area, Al Jazeera reports, citing a source in the city’s Shifa Hospital.
Palestinian media gives his age as 17.
The Sudaniya area is located along the coast in northwestern Gaza City, on the Hamas-controlled side of the Gaza ceasefire line.
The IDF does not immediately comment.
The United States says it will lift sanctions on Belarusian potash in the latest sign of a thaw between Washington and the isolated autocracy.
John Coale, the US special envoy for Belarus, is meeting the country’s authoritarian leader Alexander Lukashenko for talks in the Belarusian capital of Minsk this weekend.
A close ally of Russia, Minsk has faced Western isolation and sanctions for years. Lukashenko has ruled the nation of 9.5 million with an iron fist for more than three decades, and the country has been repeatedly sanctioned by Western countries both for its crackdown on human rights and for allowing Moscow to use its territory in the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, fresh from a meeting with Russia’s Vladimir Putin, says he hopes to discuss a Ukraine-Russia peace plan with US President Donald Trump, adding that “peace is not far away.”
He also warns that the Black Sea should not turn into an “area of confrontation” between Moscow and Kyiv, after several strikes in recent weeks.
“The Black Sea should not be seen as an area of confrontation. This would not benefit Russia or Ukraine. Everyone needs safe navigation in the Black Sea,” he is quoted as telling reporters aboard his plane, according to the official Anadolu news agency.
The IDF says it killed a Palestinian terror operative who crossed the Gaza ceasefire line in the Strip’s south yesterday.
According to the military, two operatives were identified crossing the Yellow Line and approaching troops of the 7th Armored Brigade, “in a way that posed an immediate threat.”
“The troops eliminated one terrorist to remove the threat,” the army says.
Ukraine’s southern port city of Odesa and the surrounding region are suffering major blackouts after a large overnight Russian attack on the power grid across the country.
President Volodymyr Zelensky says Russia had attacked Ukraine with over 450 drones and 30 missiles.
“The brunt of the attack was on our energy system, on the south and Odesa region,” he writes on Telegram, adding that thousands of families in seven regions across Ukraine were left without power.
Devastating floods and landslides have killed more than 1,000 people in Indonesia, rescuers say, as the Southeast Asian nation grapples with relief efforts.
The disaster, which has hit the northwestern island of Sumatra over the past two weeks, has killed 1,003 people, while 218 remain missing, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency says in its latest toll.
A Palestinian was killed by IDF gunfire in north Gaza’s Jabalia, Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital says.
He is identified in Palestinian media as Mohammed Sabri Al-Adham, 19.
????الشهيد محمد صبري الأدهم الذي ارتقى برصاص الاحتلال صباح اليوم في جباليا شمال قطاع غزة. pic.twitter.com/F2AMmEGIyq
— شبكة يافا الإخبارية (@yaffa_ps) December 13, 2025
According to WAFA, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency, he was killed in the Nazla area of Jabalia, on the Hamas-controlled side of the Gaza ceasefire line.
The IDF does not immediately comment.
Iranian authorities detained 18 crew members of a foreign tanker seized in the Gulf of Oman yesterday that they say was carrying 6 million liters of smuggled Iranian fuel, Iranian media reports, citing the Hormozgan province judiciary.
It says those detained under the ongoing investigation include the captain of the tanker. The identity of the vessel and the nationalities of the crew members are not disclosed.
The authorities say the tanker committed multiple violations, including “ignoring stop orders, attempting to flee, (and) lacking navigation and cargo documentation.”
Iran, which has some of the world’s lowest fuel prices due to heavy subsidies and the plunge in the value of its national currency, has been fighting rampant fuel smuggling by land to neighboring countries and by sea to Gulf Arab states.
TEHRAN, Iran — Iran has introduced a new pricing tier for its subsidized gasoline, marking the first price adjustment since 2019.
The move comes as the country grapples with a depreciating currency and economic sanctions.
The revised system, implemented Saturday, adds a third pricing level, allowing motorists to receive 60 liters (15 gallons) per month at the subsidized rate. Anything beyond that falls under the new pricing scheme.
Despite the changes, Iran’s gasoline prices remain among the lowest in the world.
The last significant price hike six years ago sparked nationwide protests, leading to a crackdown that reportedly killed over 300 people.
WASHINGTON — A US special operations team in the Indian Ocean raided a ship headed to Iran from China last month and seized military-related articles, the Wall Street Journal reports, citing US officials.
The cargo consisted of components potentially useful for Iran’s conventional weapons, one official says, adding the shipment had been destroyed.
US forces boarded the ship several hundred miles off the coast of Sri Lanka, according to the newspaper, which adds the vessel was later allowed to proceed.
JTA — The former top litigation volunteer at the Anti-Defamation League is making public his scorching resignation letter from the group, in the latest sign of Jewish discontent over the organization’s shifts during the second Trump administration.
Joe Berman, who chaired the ADL’s National Legal Affairs Committee from 2018 to 2022 and who volunteered in other capacities until this year, says in an interview he left because the venerated civil rights group had become a “useful idiot” for the Trump administration by failing to respond aggressively to antisemitism on the right.
“Whether intentionally or ignorantly, ADL is providing cover to people who intend great harm to our nation,” Berman says in his letter resigning from two national and one regional leadership bodies. Berman sent the letter in March and is making it public now for the first time through the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
Voicing a perspective that is common among liberal opponents of Trump, Berman argued that the Trump administration has used the pretext of alleged antisemitism to impose penalties on universities and arrest non-citizens.
“Jews and the fight against antisemitism are being cynically used to advance an authoritarian, anti-democratic agenda,” he wrote. “For ADL’s national leadership to not recognize these clear and present dangers is inexplicable.”
Berman adds, ”Make no mistake: this will not end well, especially for Jewish Americans.”
In a response to Berman’s letter, an ADL spokesperson reiterated the argument that CEO Jonathan Greenblatt laid out in a recent op-ed: that during a time of dramatically increased antisemitism, shifting focus and resources away from other societal challenges is only appropriate.
Europeans and Ukrainians are asking the United States to provide them with “security guarantees” before any territorial negotiations in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, the French presidency says.
“We need full visibility on the security guarantees that Europeans and Americans can give to Ukrainians before any settlement on contentious territorial issues,” the Elysee says ahead of a Monday meeting in Berlin with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, other European leaders and the heads of the EU and NATO.
Four US lawmakers say there has been no accountability for an October 2023 attack by the Israeli military that struck a group of journalists in Lebanon, killing a Reuters visuals journalist and wounding others.
US Senator Peter Welch from Vermont, the home state of one of the journalists wounded in the attack, accused Israel of not conducting a serious investigation into the incident, saying he had seen no proof of that.
He does not specify what details he had requested from the Israeli government, or what, if anything, he had been given.
On October 13, 2023, an Israeli tank fired two shells in quick succession from Israel as journalists were filming cross-border shelling. The attack killed Reuters visuals journalist Issam Abdallah and severely wounded Agence France-Presse (AFP) photographer Christina Assi.
The Israeli military has said it does not target journalists but has not offered an explanation for why that Israeli tank unit fired at the group of journalists.
In a news conference organized by two advocacy groups, Welch, a Democrat, says he had been given no written proof of an Israeli investigation into the attack, nor any evidence that Israeli officials have spoken with victims, witnesses, shooters or any of the independent investigators.
In June 2025, Senator Welch’s office was told by the Embassy that the IDF had conducted an investigation into the incident and the conclusion was that none of the soldiers acted outside of the IDF’s rules of engagement.
Standing next to AFP journalist Dylan Collins, an American citizen who was also wounded in the attack, Welch said the Israeli authorities have “stonewalled” him on his pleas for an investigation and gave him conflicting answers. Welch did not give further details about the interactions.
“The IDF has made no effort, none, to seriously investigate this incident,” Welch said. “The IDF claimed they conducted an investigation but there’s absolutely no evidence that there was any investigation,” he adds.
Welch says the Israeli government told his office the investigation was closed but separately told the AFP that the investigation was active and the findings have not been concluded. “So which is it? Both can’t be true.”
Asked by Reuters about Welch’s comments and whether its investigation is concluded, an IDF spokesperson says: “The event is still being examined.” The spokesperson does not provide further details.
US intelligence officials temporarily suspended sharing some key information with Israel during the Biden administration over concerns about its conduct of the war in Gaza, according to six people familiar with the matter.
In the second half of 2024, the US cut off a live video feed from a US drone over Gaza, which was being used by the Israeli government in its hunt for hostages and Hamas fighters. The suspension lasted for at least a few days, said five of the sources.
The US also restricted how Israel could use certain intelligence in its pursuit of high-value military targets in Gaza, says two of the sources, who declined to specify when this decision was taken.
The decision came as worries intensified in the US intelligence community about the number of civilians killed in Israel’s military operations in Gaza. Officials were also concerned that the Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, was mistreating Palestinian prisoners, the sources say.
Officials were concerned that Israel had not provided sufficient assurances that it would abide by the law of war when using American information, according to three of the sources. Under US law, intelligence agencies must receive such assurances before sharing information with a foreign country.
While the Biden administration maintained a policy of continuous support of Israel with both intelligence and weapons sharing, the decision inside the intelligence agencies to withhold information was limited and tactical, said two of the sources. The officials sought to ensure that Israel was using American intelligence in accordance with the law of war, said the sources.
One person familiar with the matter said intelligence officials have latitude to make some intelligence-sharing decisions in real time without an order from the White House. Another person familiar with the matter said any requests by Israel to change how it uses U.S. intelligence required new assurances about how it would use the information.
Reuters could not determine the dates of the decisions or if President Joe Biden was aware of them. A spokesperson for Biden did not respond to a request for comment.
