Oct. 8: After Avi Gil interview, Eisenkot calls for criminal probe against Netanyahu

‘Blood on your hands’: Anti-Zionist protesters rail against Mamdani outside New York City Hall

Anti-Zionist protesters rally against Mayor Zohran Mamdani, in New York City, October 7, 2026. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)

Anti-Zionist protesters rail against New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani at a rally outside City Hall marking the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, onslaught in Israel.

The protest, organized by leading activist groups in the city, is the first anti-Zionist protest targeting Mamdani.

The protesters attack Mamdani for Israel real estate events in the city, for the public college system’s investments in defense companies, for policing of protests, and for keeping NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch, who is Jewish, in office.

They chant, “Muslim mayor we know you, you’re a normalizer too,” and “Mayor Mamdani pick a side, justice or genocide.”

“I’m here today to call on Mayor Zohran Mamdani to leave the side of the oppressors,” a speaker tells the crowd.

Another speaker says Mamdani has “blood on his hands.”

Attendees carry signs showing Mamdani that say, “Pro-Palestine mayor?” and depicting Mamdani rolling out a red carpet for Prime Minister Netanyahu.

Some protesters carry flags for Hamas and Hezbollah.

A lone counter-protester walks at the front of the march, holding a sign that says, “On Oct. 7, 2023, your ‘resistance’ killed 809 civilians, kidnapped 251, raped.”

The protesters harass her, putting middle fingers in her face and shouting until police separate the two sides.

Netanyahu-led bloc ahead of Zionist opposition parties with 55-50 seats in TV poll

A Channel 13 news poll puts parties in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s bloc ahead of the Zionist anti-Netanyahu bloc of parties, with 55-50 seats.

However, Netanyahu is still not predicted to be able to form a coalition.

According to the poll, Netanyahu’s Likud and opposition frontrunner Eisenkot’s Yashar parties are neck and neck, both predicted to win 20 seats in the October 27 election.

As for the other parties in the incumbent’s bloc, Otzma Yehudit and United Torah Judaism would win eight seats each, Shas seven, Religious Zionism-Zehut seven, and People of Israel five.

As for the other parties in the Zionist opposition, B’Yachad would win 12 seats, The Democrats 10, and Yisrael Beytenu eight.

The Islamist Ra’am party is predicted to win six seats, while the Joint List is predicted to win nine.

The two Arab-majority factions are not considered part of the declared blocs, whose parties — with the exception of The Democrats, which supports Ra’am being part of a future coalition — have vowed they would not partner with them.

The Reservists and Blue and White parties do not cross the 3.25% electoral threshold.

The poll collected data from 1,013 respondents and has a margin of error of 2.5%.

Maduro and wife set to face charges over alleged torture of Americans, US official says

This courtroom sketch shows deposed president of Venezuela Nicolas Maduro (center), attending his arraignment at Daniel Patrick Moynihan United States Courthouse on January 5, 2026, in New York, with defense lawyers Barry Pollack (left) and Mark Donnelly (right). (Jane Rosenberg/AFP)

WASHINGTON — Ousted Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores are expected to face new criminal charges in the United States over allegations that Americans detained in Venezuela were tortured, a US official says.

The new charges could come as soon as today, according to the official, who was briefed on the investigation.

Maduro, who led Venezuela for 13 years, and Flores were captured by the US military from their home in Caracas on January 3 and brought to New York to face drug trafficking charges. They have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to go on trial starting June 1, 2027.

A spokesperson for the Manhattan US Attorney’s Office, which brought the charges, declines to comment.

Lawyers for Maduro and Flores do not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Israel’s US envoy calls Mamdani a ‘defender of Palestinian terrorism’ over NYC mayor’s Oct. 7 statement

US Ambassador Yechiel Leiter calls New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani a “defender of Palestinian terrorism, a promoter of antisemitism, and an advocate of anti-Americanism” over his statement marking October 7, 2023.

In the statement, Mamdani mourned those killed and condemned Hamas, but the bulk of the statement is focused on Israel, accusing the Jewish state of genocide and apartheid.

“I have to take a moment from my son’s bedside, on life support after being struck by a Palestinian terrorist, to respond to the dangerous lies being spewed by @NYCMayor,” Leiter writes on X, referring to his son Neria, who was seriously injured in a car-ramming attack in the West Bank.

“It’s actually hard to find a sentence in Mamdani’s post that isn’t a lie. Paying lip service to the victims of October 7 just to spread blood libels about Israel might play nicely to the red-green/communist-Islamist alliance that he promotes in the U.S, but those of us who know better see his perverted language for what it is. This man is a defender of Palestinian terrorism, a promoter of antisemitism, and an advocate of anti-Americanism. Even today, October 7, he can’t help but attack the Jewish state with absurd accusations and outright propaganda,” Leiter says.

“Let’s be clear: the only attempted genocide in this conflict was perpetrated by the barbarians he supports, Hamas, who butchered, raped, and murdered in the most horrific ways imaginable,” Leiter says.

I have to take a moment from my son’s bedside, on life support after being struck by a Palestinian terrorist, to respond to the dangerous lies being spewed by @NYCMayor.

It’s actually hard to find a sentence in Mamdani’s post that isn’t a lie.

Paying lip service to the…

— Ambassador Yechiel (Michael) Leiter (@yechielleiter) October 7, 2026

Anti-Zionists crash NYC Oct. 7 coexistence event featuring Mamdani

A coexistence event run by the group Israelis for Peace, in New York City, October 7, 2026. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)

Anti-Zionist protesters disrupt an October 7 mourning event for Israelis and Palestinians attended by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

The event is led by the leftist group Israelis for Peace.

Organizers read out testimonies from the families of Israelis and Palestinians killed in the conflict.

Attendees hold electric candles and signs that say, “Not one more life,” in English and Hebrew.

Mamdani stands near the front but does not make a speech.

Outside the police barricades, hundreds of protesters chant, “Globalize the intifada,” “Zohran your hands are red,” and “We don’t want no Zionists here.”

“Zohran you can’t hide, we charge you with genocide,” the crowd shouts.

“Mamdani your hands are red”: Anti-Zionist protesters chant against Mamdani as he attends October 7 coexistence event pic.twitter.com/ikyL5Fgmov

— Luke Tress (@luketress) October 8, 2026

Houthis say they fired ballistic missile at Riyadh’s airport

Yemen’s Iran-aligned Houthi group says it had attacked King Khalid International Airport in the Saudi capital Riyadh with a ballistic missile.

The statement comes hours after Saudi Arabia said a midweek attack on the same airport had killed one person.

There is no immediate confirmation from Saudi Arabia of the latest attack claim.

One year into Gaza ceasefire, report finds no hospital has returned to full operation

People walk up stairs to the site of an Israeli strike at Nasser Hospital, minutes before a second round of strikes hit the same spot in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, August 25, 2025. (AP/Mariam Dagga)

A new report by Physicians for Human Rights Israel examines the state of Gaza’s healthcare system a year after the ceasefire in the Strip began in October 2025, finding that conditions have only marginally improved.

Israel has repeatedly provided evidence throughout the war that Hamas used hospitals and other medical facilities in Gaza for military purposes, including as command posts, weapons storage sites, and systematically using cover for its tunnel network. During the war, the IDF uncovered tunnels and weapons at several medical complexes, most prominently at Gaza City’s Shifa Hospital.

The IDF has also presented evidence of Hamas infrastructure at other medical facilities, including tunnels at Rantisi, the Indonesian and European hospitals, and has said gunmen operated from within hospital grounds. Hamas and Gaza health officials have repeatedly denied that hospitals were used as military command centers.

As a result, during the fighting, the IDF evacuated a significant number of hospitals, including their staff and patients, and some were extensively damaged or destroyed during battles between Hamas and Israeli forces. Shifa Hospital, where Hamas maintained a command center, was largely destroyed during two rounds of intense fighting and has been rebuilt over the past year.

According to the PHRI report, no hospital in the Strip is fully operational today. In October 2025, 14 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals were partially functioning. Nearly a year later, 20 hospitals are partially operational — but not a single one is functioning at full capacity.

In October 2025, Gaza had 103 intensive care beds. By July 2026, that number had increased by just one, to 104, the report says.

The report also says patients in Gaza have continued to die while awaiting medical evacuation. According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, between October 2023 and July 2, 2026, at least 1,570 patients died while waiting to be evacuated for treatment, including 505 cancer patients and at least 264 children.

Before October 7, patients from Gaza could be transferred for treatment to hospitals in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Following the October 7 massacre, however, Israel barred such transfers. This remains the case despite the fact that specific Palestinian hospitals, including in East Jerusalem, have dedicated funding for treating Palestinian patients and a long history of receiving patients from Gaza. Today, medical evacuations from Gaza are permitted only to third countries.

Keren Shavit, projects coordinator in the Occupied Palestinian Territory Department at Physicians for Human Rights Israel (PHRI), tells The Times of Israel: “For years, these hospitals treated patients from Gaza as part of the Palestinian healthcare system, and they are ready and able to receive them. In many cases, the care patients desperately need is available just an hour or two from home. Yet since October 2023, Israel has imposed a blanket ban on transferring patients from Gaza to these hospitals.”

A High Court petition challenging the policy has not been dismissed outright. Rather, the court has periodically considered whether to intervene in the government’s policy barring patients from Gaza from traveling to Israel and the West Bank for treatment.

In its latest decision, in July 2026, the High Court declined to intervene in the policy at that stage and instructed the state to submit an update on the policy by December 21, 2026.

Signage comes down at UK consulate in East Jerusalem as deadline passes amid sanctions spat

A view of the entrance to the British Consulate in East Jerusalem, September 9, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Workers at the British consulate in East Jerusalem are removing the signage as a deadline expires amid a diplomatic spat over sanctions, witnesses say.

Workers in the consulate remove a plaque reading “British Consulate General” and another sign for its consular section. The British flag is still flying over the building. There was no immediate comment from the consulate, which Israel had ordered closed by today.

Last month, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced a series of countermeasures against the United Kingdom in response to British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s announcement of what Sa’ar called a “hostile” sanctions package targeting West Bank settlements, “and following a series of anti-Israel decisions by the Labour government over the past two years.”

France and Canada joined Britain in the settlement sanctions, but Israel has not taken action against them.

Britain has warned Israel that it could expel 27 Israeli diplomats from the embassy in London if Israel follows through on its decision to close the British consulate in East Jerusalem, where 27 British diplomats work, according to an unsourced Ynet report on Monday.

The incident has highlighted growing frustration among Israel’s longtime allies over its escalating settlement actions in the West Bank.

Britain cited Israeli government-backed plans to expand settlements and rising settler extremist attacks targeting Palestinians in the West Bank. The British sanctions are to take effect next year.

The British consulate, in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, handles the country’s relations with Palestinians in the city as well as in the West Bank and Gaza. It also provides consular services to Palestinians. Britain’s embassy is in Tel Aviv.

Israeli flags set alight near Toronto church

Police in Toronto are investigating a suspected hate crime after several Israeli flags were set on fire need a church, Canadian media reports.

The apparent act of arson occurred on the three-year anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught.

There were no injuries and no arrests, police tell CBC News.

“On a day when we remember the victims of October 7, this act of hate is especially disturbing,” the Israeli consulate in Toronto says in a statement. “A church should be a place of peace, not a target for hatred.”

London Jewish man beaten after confronting activists over graffiti calling Labour candidate a ‘puppet of genocidal Israel’

A Jewish man says he was beaten when he confronted activists spraying anti-Israel graffiti in London.

Dan Levene tells British media outlets that he intervened on Tuesday evening when he saw the two spraying a slogan calling Labour’s candidate in today’s local election, Sagal Abdi-Wali, a “puppet of genocidal Israel.”

The incident took place in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency, where voters will go to the polls today as Green Party leader Zack Polanksi tries to win the seat vacated by former UK prime minister Keir Starmer.

“I said, ‘No, you’re not doing that,’ at which point this guy got up and [it] transpired he was quite a lot larger than me. I told him what he was writing was neo-Nazi [propaganda],” Levene tells The Times. “All this stuff about genocide and Israelis exerting puppetry control over people. This is the message of the Nazis that Jewish people escaped in the middle of the last century.

“He started shouting at me and started punching me. I stood my ground and then he started kicking me in the side of my legs quite hard for about 20 seconds, clearly trying to get me down on the floor,” Levene says.

Levene tells the outlet that he was then kicked to the floor, before he was punched and kicked in the head and ribs.

The Jewish News reports that London police are treating the incident as an antisemitic hate crime.

Levene says that he believes that the graffiti was linked to the Green Party’s passing of a vote earlier this week declaring Zionism to be racist.

“It’s exactly the type of anti-Zionist message that the Greens have adopted as policy. There have been other instances of Green activists using this or similar stenciled messages during the by-election campaign,” he tells the Jewish News.

🇬🇧 London, October 6: Proudly Jewish Dan Levene, 52, was kicked in the head and ribs after stopping two men stencilling an antisemitic slur on Queen Square cobbles. Met is treating it as an antisemitic hate crime.https://t.co/pxQjgmJ7q1 pic.twitter.com/pdNsiitYLg

— CAM Alerts (@Alerts_CAM) October 7, 2026

IDF says it killed suspect who crossed ceasefire line in southern Gaza

A Palestinian who crossed the Yellow Line in the southern Gaza Strip was killed yesterday, the IDF says.

According to the military, the suspect attempted to sabotage operational infrastructure, posing an immediate threat.

20 UK diplomats from East Jerusalem consulate to leave Israel amid spat over sanctions, but limited mission to stay open

A photograph shows the visitors’ entrance to the British consulate in East Jerusalem after the signs were removed on October 8, 2026. (John Wessels/AFP)

Twenty British diplomats will leave Israel while the UK’s mission in East Jerusalem will remain open in a limited format, says Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, after a bilateral agreement was reached in the wake of London’s decision to sanction Israeli settlements in the West Bank and implement a series of other measures.

The countries agree that the UK’s East Jerusalem consulate will cease operating today in its current format, and that the 20 diplomats — including the consul-general — will leave Israel.

The British government will continue operating from the building — which it owns — with a skeleton staff of seven diplomats. It will not function as a consulate.

The plaque reading “British Consulate General” and another sign for its consular section have already come down.

“We established a clear principle: Israel will not allow actions to be taken against it without Israel taking appropriate countermeasures in response,” says Sa’ar.

Israeli diplomats in the UK, 27 of whom would have been expelled in a British countermeasure according to reports, will all be allowed to remain in their roles in London under the agreement.

“We have been clear that we do not accept that the Government of Israel has the legal right to close the British Consulate General in Jerusalem, which has been there for nearly 200 years,” says British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband in a statement.

“The UK government reiterates its long-standing view that East Jerusalem is occupied territory.”

He says that the consulate will now be called the UK Mission, Jerusalem, and will “continue to deliver vital services and our work with the Palestinian people.”

He paints the withdrawal of consulate staff as a temporary measure “to ensure their safety and security,” and says that London will work to rebuild its presence in Jerusalem.

Miliband commits to avoiding “reciprocal action” while discussions are underway.

“The UK stands steadfast by the measures we took on 8 September, in concert with the international community, in support of a two-state solution to deliver peace and security for the people of Israel and Palestine,” says Miliband.

First US-made Iron Dome interceptor completed at Arkansas plant

From right to left: IDF military attaché in Washington Maj. Gen. Tal Politis; Rafael Senior Vice President and head of its Air Defense Division Shlomo Toaff; Homa Directorate head Moshe Patel; Arkansas Senator Tom Cotton; Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders; Raytheon head of Air and Land Systems Tom Liberty; R2S CEO Jonathan Casey; Arkansas Congressman Bruce Westerman; US Missile Defense Agency deputy director Maj. Gen. Jason Cothern; and Israel’s Consul General to the Southwest United States, Consul General Adi Farjon Israel, at a ceremony commemorating the the first Iron Dome interceptor to be fully built and assembled in the United States, East Camden, Arkansas, October 8, 2026. (Defense Ministry)

The first Iron Dome interceptor to be fully manufactured and assembled in the United States has been completed at a joint Rafael-Raytheon plant in Camden, Arkansas, Israel’s Defense Ministry announces.

The ministry’s Homa missile defense directorate receives the Tamir interceptor at a ceremony at the plant, operated by R2S, the joint venture between RTX’s Raytheon and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems.

The US has supplied components for Tamir production for years, but Camden is the first site outside Israel to manufacture complete interceptors, which will be shipped to Israel for operational use.

The plant will also manufacture SkyHunter, the US version of the Tamir, for the Marine Corps’ Medium-Range Intercept Capability (MRIC) air defense system.

“The new production line in the US is a significant addition to the shared production capabilities of Israel and the United States,” says Moshe Patel, head of the Homa directorate. He says the facility was part of the ministry’s effort to accelerate interceptor production across Israel’s air defense systems.

“US aid to Israel, some of which is reinvested in the American industry, strengthens the two countries’ shared industrial base, deepens the partnership between the [Missile Defense Agency] and the US administration, and enhances Israel and the US’s ability to protect their citizens’ lives,” Patel adds.

The Iron Dome system has carried out more than 10,000 successful interceptions during its 15 years of operation, the ministry says.

Iran says 1st flight by foreign airline landed since start of war after US issued sanctions waiver for Iraqi carrier

The first commercial flight operated by a foreign airline to fly into Iran since the outbreak of the Middle East war has landed, state media reports, after the United States granted a sanctions waiver for Iraq’s national carrier to fly to the Islamic Republic.

State TV broadcasts a short video of the Iraqi Airways flight landing in capital Tehran from Iraq’s Najaf, a city holy to Shia Muslims, adding that it was a round-trip service.

“Operated by Iraqi Airways, the flight took off from Najaf Airport and landed successfully at Imam Khomeini Airport in Tehran at 6:50 am (0320 GMT),” state TV says.

Last month, Iraq’s transport ministry said that the United States had granted Iraqi Airways an exemption to fly to Iran, with an official saying it applied to pilgrims traveling between Iran and Najaf.

The Iraqi government also said last week that it had secured an agreement with the US allowing Iranian airlines, except Mahan Air, to operate daily flights to and from Najaf, home to one of the most revered shrines in Shia Islam.

It came after Washington imposed restrictions on Iran’s aviation industry last month, vowing to take a hard line against companies that assist it.

Haredi protests to block roads in Jerusalem, central Israel; organizers say they’ll block access to Ben Gurion Airport

Ultra-Orthodox Jews clash with police during a protest against the drafting of Haredi Jews to the IDF, on Route 4 near Bnei Brak, August 8, 2026. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Haredi protesters will block highways in central Israel and Jerusalem from 4 p.m. in demonstrations against the arrests of ultra-Orthodox draft dodgers.

According to the Walla news site, the protests are expected to be particularly large because the entire hardline Jerusalem Faction has been directed to attend, rather than smaller groups within the organization.

Delays are expected at the entrance to Jerusalem, the Sarei Israel intersection, and Bar Ilan Street, as well as at the light railway.

Demonstrators also say they will block Route 4 in the center of the country, and cause disruptions on routes 1 and 6.

Organizers additionally intend to block access to Ben Gurion Airport by both rail and road, Walla says.

The protests will come after a series of recent demonstrations and riots over efforts to arrest Haredi draft evaders.

Currently, approximately 80,000 Haredi men between the ages of 18 and 24 are eligible for military service and have not enlisted. The Attorney General’s Office has called for the state to strengthen its enforcement of draft orders, including arresting draft evaders.

Explosions heard in Riyadh amid fighting between Saudi Arabia, Houthis

Several explosions echoed across the Saudi capital Riyadh, witnesses say, during the war between the kingdom and Houthi fighters in Yemen.

The Iran-backed group has claimed repeated attacks targeting Riyadh airport in recent days along with salvos aimed at critical infrastructure and military sites elsewhere in Saudi Arabia.

After Likud touts PM’s wartime achievements on Oct. 7 anniversary, Bennett fumes that Netanyahu is asking victims to ‘thank him’

A photo released by the Government Press Office in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he honored the victims murdered on October 7, which includes an image of Yuval Castleman, erroneously killed by an armed civilian during a Jerusalem terror attack, released on October 7, 2026 (Prime Minister's Office)

B’Yachad leader Naftali Bennett accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of demanding gratitude from the victims of the October 7, 2023, Hamas massacre rather than taking responsibility for the disaster, after Likud’s sole statement yesterday on the third anniversary of the attacks only briefly commemorated the dead before absolving the premier of responsibility and crediting him with wartime achievements.

“Instead of taking responsibility, the prime minister asks the victims to thank him,” Bennett tells Army Radio. “One who behaves like this is neither a man nor a human being.”

Likud’s statement yesterday was devoted to denying that Netanyahu bore any responsibility for the Hamas-led attack, while crediting him with the “tremendous success” of “returning every hostage,” “conquering” Gaza, military successes against Hezbollah, and preventing Iran’s nuclear annihilation of Israel, among other things.

Forty-six hostages abducted alive were killed in captivity, mostly by their captors but some by IDF fire while negotiations were repeatedly thwarted, including by threats from Netanyahu’s far-right coalition partners to topple his government. Despite major military blows, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s regime remain intact.

The Prime Minister’s Office’s only statement yesterday was a photograph of Netanyahu beside several portraits of “victims murdered on October 7 by the monsters of Hamas” – including Yuval Castleman, who was in fact killed by an armed civilian while confronting terrorists in a Jerusalem terror attack on November 30, 2023.

Meanwhile, neither Netanyahu nor any members of his government appeared to attend last night’s main memorial ceremony in Tel Aviv, organized by survivors and bereaved families and attended by 50,000 people, including numerous opposition leaders.

The premier has never accepted direct responsibility for the failures that enabled the October 7 massacre, instead repeatedly deflecting blame onto the military and intelligence establishment, opposition politicians and anti-government protesters.

Hadash MK Cassif convicted of aggravated assault against a police officer over 2022 incident in West Bank

MK Ofer Cassif at the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court, October 8, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

MK Ofer Cassif of the far-left Hadash party is convicted on a charge of aggravated assault against a police officer over an incident in May 2022 in which Cassif was blocked when trying to get to a demonstration against the evacuation of Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank.

Aggravated assault against a police officer is punishable by up to five years in prison, and a minimum three-month prison term.

Cassif was accused of hitting a Border Police officer’s leg with his car and of subsequently slapping him around the head after he got into a shouting match with the Border Police officer, when the MK was prevented from driving to the demonstration.

The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court finds that “it was proved beyond all reasonable doubt” that Cassif did hit the Border Police officer with his car “with the awareness and intention of thwarting him” from carrying out his duty.

The court also determined that Cassif’s slap to the police officer’s head, in response to a “light” poke in the face by the police officer, was not protected under self-defense laws, describing the assault as disproportionate to the “incidental contact caused by the movement of the defendant’s own body” with the police officer’s finger.

If the court determines that Cassif’s crime has moral turpitude and he does not appeal, he will lose his Knesset seat.

If he were to be imprisoned, even without a determination of moral turpitude, he would be automatically suspended from Knesset for the duration of his sentence.

Cassif calls his conviction “yet another element of the ongoing, open political persecution of anyone who stands fearlessly against the occupation — and its crimes and perpetrators — while advocating for democracy, justice, and true peace for both peoples of this land.”

A sentencing hearing is scheduled for January 2027. An attorney for Cassif says it is possible he will appeal the conviction.

US man charged over alleged ISIS-inspired plot to attack Mall of America ‘because its owned by Jewish’

Shoppers walk through the Mall of America, October 7, 2026, in Bloomington, Minnesota. (AP/Ellen Schmidt)

US authorities charge a man who allegedly planned a mass shooting at a shopping mall in Minnesota in support of the Islamic State group.

The FBI arrested Sheikhdoon Abdullahi Mohamud, 18, after he bought an AK-47 rifle and ammunition from an undercover agent in a sting operation that foiled his apparent plot.

“This individual allegedly obtained a weapon he hoped to use in a mass casualty attack in support of ISIS, but this FBI arrested him and put a stop to his plans,” says FBI Director Kash Patel.

Mohamud, from Richfield, Minnesota, allegedly intended to kill 30 to 60 people at the nearby Mall of America.

According CNN, the affidavit says that Mohamud wrote he intended to target the mall “because its owned by Jewish so if I kill even 30 people noone would go there anymore. I want to harm the jew just like the brothers in Australia bondi beach harmed the jews.”

He is accused of sharing his intentions with an FBI source in hundreds of messages exchanged since 2024, including a selfie-style video whereby Mohamud pledged his allegiance to ISIS.

Mohamud allegedly said he wanted to emulate other ISIS-inspired attacks such as the 2016 Pulse Nightclub Shooting in Florida and the 2025 Bondi Beach terror attack targeting the Jewish community in Australia.

He is said to have identified October 24 for his planned shooting — saying it would target Asians and other non-Muslims during a planned “Hmong Arts Celebration” at the mall.

“As alleged in the criminal complaint, Mohamud took substantial steps to plot to murder innocent people in the name of ISIS,” says Daniel Rosen, US attorney for Minnesota.

Mohamud is charged with one count of knowingly receiving a firearm and ammunition in order to commit a federal crime of terrorism.

Kariv urges AG to intervene in alleged use of publicly funded religious schools in right-wing election drive

MK Gilad Kariv attends a plenum session on a bill to freeze arrests of Haredi draft evaders at the assembly hall of the Knesset in Jerusalem, July 14, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Democrats MK Gilad Kariv calls on Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to prohibit senior officials at publicly funded religious Zionist schools from participating in election campaigns, following a Haaretz report that the heads of two religious public school networks have joined an initiative to mobilize right-wing voters ahead of the October 27 election.

“I ask that you act without delay to issue a directive prohibiting directors and senior officials of educational networks funded by the state from participating in election campaign headquarters, party campaigns or organized activities intended to promote a political party, candidate list or political bloc,” Kariv writes in an urgent letter to the attorney general and Education Ministry director-general.

According to a Haaretz report today, Elhanan Glatt, head of the Bnei Akiva school network, and Yanki Friedman, head of the Noam-Tzvia educational network, have joined V26, a get-out-the-vote initiative established by Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan, to boost turnout for the right-wing bloc, specifically Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s Religious Zionism and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit.

Israel has several publicly funded education streams, including the state religious (dati leumi) system, which serves the national religious community.

The schools educate some 30,000 students and receive hundreds of millions of shekels in public funding, raising concerns about attempts to mobilize students for political purposes. Under the law, teachers and other employees of educational institutions are prohibited from conducting election campaigning on behalf of political parties or other political organizations among their students.

IDF kills 2 Hamas operatives, including commander who helped abduct slain soldier’s body on Oct. 7

The IDF says it killed two Hamas operatives in separate Gaza strikes earlier this week, including one who took part in the October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel and helped abduct the body of Sgt. Shaked Dahan into the enclave.

The military identifies the man as Ibrahim Alam, a commander in Hamas’s military wing, and says he also participated in the killing of Israeli civilians on October 7. He was killed in a strike on Monday in the Khan Younis area.

The second operative, Mu’tasem Muhammad Suleiman Salah, a member of Hamas’s military wing, was killed in a separate strike on Tuesday.

The IDF says the two had “advanced plans for attacks against IDF troops and Israeli civilians and worked to rebuild Hamas’s capabilities” during the war, and were targeted “to remove the threat.”

Hamas earning millions a day taxing goods and selling aid, former Shin Bet official says

Palestinian gunmen from Hamas and Islamic Jihad gather next to Eid al-Fitr prayers in Gaza City, March 20, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)

Hamas continues to exercise effective control over Gaza after three years of war, bringing in millions of dollars a day by taxing goods entering the enclave and selling stolen humanitarian aid on the black market at exorbitant prices, according to the former head of research for the Shin Bet, Neomi Neumann.

“Everything that enters the Strip becomes a source of income for Hamas,” Neumann tells the Kan public broadcaster, adding that the group uses its economic power to create dependence and quietly enforce order through a decentralized system of rule.

She estimates that the group’s daily revenues range from $2 million to $5 million, helping it maintain influence over the population and fund its operations.

Neumann says US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan should move forward, but says that both Israel and Hamas are obstructing it.

“Hamas says Israel must withdraw first, while Israel demands that Hamas disarm,” she says.

“The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza and the International Stabilization Force must enter the Strip so that Hamas loses strength,” Neumann says.

She adds that the Palestinian Authority should eventually replace Hamas as Gaza’s governing body.

East Jerusalem pharmacology student charged with plot to kill Jews with chemicals, explosives

Prosecutors charge a 22-year-old pharmacology student at the Palestinian al-Quds University in East Jerusalem with planning to manufacture explosives and chemical weapons to kill Jews, starting with an attack on law enforcement in revenge for parking tickets given to members of his mosque.

Muhammad Shalbi is indicted at the Jerusalem District Court on charges of preparing to carry out murder with a terror motive, which carries a 15-year prison sentence, and receiving training for terrorist purposes, which carries a seven-year prison sentence.

Shalbi, who was arrested on August 30, had “undergone a process of religious revival and ideological radicalization” following the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, the Jerusalem District Attorney’s Office says in the indictment.

He began to regularly attend a mosque in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, and to consume content “identified with the terrorist groups Hamas and ISIS,” and ultimately decided to “act against the State of Israel and security forces,” prosecutors say.

Shalbi planned around the start of 2025 to detonate an explosive near the mosque against officers “amid his anger over parking tickets given the vehicles of worshipers who had parked near the mosque during prayers,” the indictment says.

As part of that plan, the suspect allegedly tracked the officers’ activity for about two months and downloaded instructional material on explosives. He halted the activity after the officers stopped coming, the indictment says.

Later, and until his arrest, Shalbi “planned to carry out a terrorist attack in preparation for the ‘Day of Judgment,’ in which, according to his view, Jerusalem would be conquered,” prosecutors say, adding that the suspect said in interrogation that his goal was to kill “a ton of Jews.”

Around September 2025, the suspect allegedly drove to Ramallah twice to purchase a thermometer, a measuring cup, half a liter of hydrochloric acid, and between four and ten grams each of potassium permanganate, potassium chlorate, sodium sulfate and sodium hydroxide. Some of the compounds can produce chlorine gas, a choking agent that has been used as a chemical weapon.

Shalbi allegedly also performed an experiment in his bathtub in which he mixed potassium chlorate and sugar, which creates a highly combustible material.

In addition, the suspect researched how to produce an explosive out of acetylsalicylic acid, which is sold in pharmacies as aspirin, according to the indictment.

As part of his preparations for the “Day of Judgment” attack, Shalbi allegedly downloaded dozens of files on the manufacturing of explosives and chemical weapons from a Telegram group identified with ISIS. He later deleted those files and his search history “with the aim of covering up his actions,” prosecutors say.

He also copied to his notebook two recipes for “toxins that can kill people through touch or taste,” as well as a list of potentially explosive materials, including some that are available in pharmacies, the indictment says.

Israel targeting UK diplomatic presence in ‘logical’ response to ‘torrent of one-sided moves’ — Israeli official

A photograph shows the visitors’ entrance to the British consulate in East Jerusalem after the signs were removed on October 8, 2026. (John Wessels/AFP)

Israel’s measures against the UK in recent months — including today’s closure of the East Jerusalem consulate, which has been downgraded to a mission — have been “very specific, and very logical,” an Israeli diplomat tells The Times of Israel.

The British diplomatic presence in Israel has been used to target Israel, claims the diplomat, and recent moves by Israel have been a “perfectly logical response to what they’ve been doing.”

The UK has been forced to recall dozens of diplomats and military personnel, including 12 from the International Gaza Support Center in Kiryat Gat and others involved in training Palestinian Authority police officers in the West Bank, and 20 from the consulate in East Jerusalem.

“It’s a logical, measured diplomatic response to a torrent of one-sided, anti-Israel moves,” says the diplomat.

Settler activists begin rebuilding illegal West Bank outpost two days after demolition

Settler activists begin to reestablish the illegal settlement outpost of Netzah Shmuel in the central West Bank, between the Israeli settlement of Adei Ad and the Palestinian town of Turmus Ayya.

Activists put up a tent at the site yesterday, a day after security services evacuated a family and group of youths living there and demolished the outpost.

Police said their forces “encountered violent disturbances” when evacuating Netzah Shmuel and another outpost, and arrested 12 settler activists on suspicion of assaulting security forces and violating IDF orders during the evacuation and demolition operation.

Winter declares Palestinian people to be ‘a lie,’ tears up copy of Oslo Accords

Ofer Winter tears up what he says is a copy of the Oslo Accords at the ICT conference at Reichman University on October 8, 2026 (People of Israel party)

People of Israel party leader Ofer Winter tears up a piece of paper in a symbolic rejection of the Oslo Accords, declaring that “there is no Palestinian people” and vowing that a Palestinian state will never be established, speaking onstage at a conference.

“There is no Palestinian people. It’s a lie. There is no Palestinian state. The entire purpose of the idea is the destruction of the State of Israel,” Winter tells an international counterterrorism conference. “There is no negotiating over our home. Never, never will a Palestinian state be established here!”

Declaring that “the Oslo Accords no longer exist,” the right-wing politician tears up what he says is a copy of the agreement and also calls for the disarmament of the Palestinian Authority, claiming its weapons violate existing agreements and are intended for use against Israel.

“The next October 7 could come from Judea and Samaria,” he warns, referring to the West Bank, claiming that such an attack could kill nearly 20 times as many people as the Hamas-led 2023 massacre in southern Israel. “We had an opportunity to [disarm the PA] over the past three years, and it didn’t happen. It’s time to wake up.”

People of Israel is currently polling below the 3.25 percent electoral threshold required to enter the Knesset in the majority of surveys, three weeks before the October 27 election.

‘Public deserves to know the truth’: In 1st interview, PM’s ex-military secretary alleges ‘criminal pattern of behavior’ in PMO

Then-Military Secretary Maj. Gen. Avi Gil arrives at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, January 3, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former military secretary confirms reports that the premier’s chief of staff sought to alter an official record from the morning of Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack, and accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of presenting an incomplete account of the events surrounding the onslaught.

Avi Gil, who served as Netanyahu’s military secretary on October 7, tells Israel Hayom and Channel 12 that he had remained silent until now in the hope of testifying before a state commission of inquiry — the establishment of which Netanyahu and his allies have resisted.

A longer version of the interview is set to be broadcast on Channel 12 this evening.

“There are too many lies in the air, and the public deserves to know the truth,” he says. “Three years have passed since October 7, and two years since I retired from the IDF. I hoped a state commission of inquiry would be established to investigate everything. Unfortunately, that hasn’t happened, and I doubt it will.”

“What the public is being told is not what actually happened,” he adds. “This isn’t my truth. It’s the country’s truth.”

Asked whether Egypt warned Israel before the attack, as has been reported, Gil says he is unaware of any such message but points to the arrival of an Egyptian intelligence aircraft in late September.

“An Egyptian intelligence plane landed in Israel and was here for a little over 60 minutes. That’s a fact. A plane like that doesn’t just show up,” he says, alleging that whoever met the plane or received a message from it “is still concealing it today.”

Gil adds that he also raised suspicions about possible alterations to official transcripts two weeks into the war, after noticing a “disproportionate collection of material” by Netanyahu’s associates. He contacted Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara and asked her “to clarify the rules about what may and may not be done with official transcripts.”

Three months later, he says, a Prime Minister’s Office stenographer informed him that Netanyahu’s chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, had instructed her to change the recorded time of Gil’s first call with Netanyahu on October 7.

Gil calls the alleged alteration part of “a criminal pattern of behavior,” and suggests it may have been intended either to portray Netanyahu as issuing orders from the attack’s outset or to imply that intelligence conveyed during a second call was already known by officials at the time of the first – potentially supporting Netanyahu’s claims of “a betrayal,” in which critical information was withheld from him.

Gil says any future commission of inquiry must examine the original recordings rather than rely on written records, “because I don’t know what was changed.”

“The document submitted to the state comptroller does not reflect what actually happened,” he says of Netanyahu’s account. “It’s part of the truth, but not the whole truth.”

Likud rejects the allegations, calling the interview “part of the false and politically motivated propaganda campaign against Prime Minister Netanyahu and Likud.”

The party maintains that Netanyahu “received no advance warning before October 7 of an attack by Hamas.”

It adds that officials who detected warning signs failed to alert the prime minister, reiterating claims that “had Prime Minister Netanyahu been updated in real time, everything would have looked different.”

Reports: Four Palestinians injured in settler attack during olive harvest in western West Bank

Four Palestinians were injured in an attack by settler extremists while they were harvesting olives in the Salfit area of the western West Bank, Palestinian media reports.

According to the Palestinian WAFA news agency, the four sustained fractures and bruises and were taken to a hospital in the city.

The report also says that settlers vandalized five vehicles.

There is no comment from the Israel Defense Forces or Israel Police.

Ben and Jerry’s Israel recalls specific tubs of patriotic ‘Milk and Honey’ flavor

'Milk and Honey,' the new ice cream flavor by Ben & Jerry’s Israel (Ben & Jerry’s Israel/Social media)

Ben and Jerry’s Israel is recalling certain batches of its patriotic “Milk and Honey” flavor, the Health Ministry announces.

The voluntary recall by American Quality Products comes after a customer found a “plastic-like foreign object,” the ministry says.

Impacted tubs have best before dates of 07/05/27, 08/05/27 or 25/11/27, and feature barcode 7290018441527.

Ben and Jerry’s Israel, which split from its American counterpart after a political dispute in 2021, billed the new flavor as its “most Israeli ever,” and said it was a “symbol of hope, rehabilitation, and positive action” after the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attack.

The milk and cream come from the dairy in Kibbutz Alumim, one of the Gaza-border communities infiltrated by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023. The honey comes from the beehives of Kibbutz Yad Mordechai. The chocolate Stars of David are made by hand at the Korint factory in Beersheba, part of the Shekulo Tov (All is Good) social enterprise, which helps integrate people with disabilities into the workforce.

IDF launches review of soldiers’ heroism during October 7 attack for military honors

Pictures of victims hang on the outer wall of a Kibbutz Nir Oz home gutted in the Hamas onslaught of October 7, 2023, as seen in the Gaza border community on October 23, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The IDF says it will formally launch the process of reviewing acts of Israeli heroism during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught to determine which soldiers should receive military commendations and decorations.

A commanders’ conference conducting the review will be held Wednesday under Personnel Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Dado Bar Kalifa and Military Court of Appeals president Maj. Gen. Orly Markman.

“The process aims to properly recognize the extraordinary acts of heroism carried out during the fighting and preserve their legacy for future generations,” the IDF says.

The military says the process will be conducted “with close attention to detail and factual accuracy, as well as sensitivity and transparency.” Bereaved families have been notified ahead of its launch.

Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir first announced plans for the review last year. Defense Minister Israel Katz separately asked him to recommend recipients of the Medal of Valor, the IDF’s highest honor, which has been awarded only 40 times, and never since 1975.

Cases of exceptional civilian heroism will be referred to an advisory committee to President Isaac Herzog, responsible for recommending recipients of the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism.

Report: Palestinian parliamentary election expected to be postponed

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in the West Bank city of Ramallah, December 22, 2025. (AP/ Nasser Nasser, Pool)

The pan-Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi reports that the Palestinian parliamentary election, scheduled for November 28, are expected to be postponed.

According to the newspaper, an announcement is expected in the coming week, before the October 13 deadline for submitting electoral lists.

The report says that a decree issued by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas ordering the postponement will likely also set a new date for the election.

According to the report, the postponement comes amid meetings held in Cairo in recent days between representatives of various Palestinian factions, including Fatah, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

The parties reportedly agreed during the meetings that the election should be postponed. A source who spoke to the newspaper said the delay would provide a better opportunity for potential reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas.

Notably, Hamas recently announced that it could run in the election as part of a joint bloc with supporters of Mohammed Dahlan, a longtime rival of Abbas who fled the Palestinian territories 15 years ago. The move raised the possibility that Abbas would bar Hamas from participating in the election, as he did in the local elections held several months ago.

Israel opens its first national pavilion at Morocco’s Marrakech Airshow

Israel’s national pavilion at Marrakech Airshow, the first since normalizing ties with Morocco in 2020, October 8, 2026. (Defense Ministry)

Israel has opened its first national pavilion at Marrakech Airshow, marking its first official participation in the defense exhibition since normalizing ties with Morocco, the Defense Ministry says.

The ministry’s International Defense Cooperation Directorate, known as SIBAT, led a delegation of eight Israeli defense companies presenting combat-tested technologies, including loitering munitions, AI-based robotic systems, autonomous navigation capabilities for unmanned aircraft, laser-guidance systems for FPV drones and satellite communications.

Elbit Systems, Israel Aerospace Industries and Rafael Advanced Defense Systems also displayed air, land, naval, space, intelligence and cyber capabilities.

SIBAT head Brig. Gen. (ret.) Yair Kulas calls the participation an “important milestone for the Defense Ministry and Israel’s defense industry,” as well as a “platform for expanding international defense cooperation and building long-term partnerships.”

Morocco agreed to normalize relations with Israel in December 2020 as part of the US-brokered Abraham Accords.

EU foreign policy chief: Bloc in favor of extending mandate of UN peacekeepers in Lebanon

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas tells AFP that the bloc is in favor of extending the mandate of United Nations peacekeepers in Lebanon, which is to expire this year.

“Our member states have been saying that there can’t be any security vacuum in southern Lebanon, so everybody is worried about the UNIFIL mandate ending,” she says in an interview during a visit to Lebanon, where she met senior officials.

“It would be most welcomed if this mandate is extended, so that is the position of the member states,” she adds.

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which now counts some 7,500 personnel from nearly 50 countries, has been in place since 1978, although its presence has not prevented repeated outbreaks of conflict.

Under US pressure, the UN Security Council voted last year to end UNIFIL’s mandate on December 31, 2026.

But in March, Lebanese terror group Hezbollah drew the country into the broader Middle East war by attacking Israel, which responded with massive airstrikes and a ground invasion that Lebanon says have killed more than 4,300 people, without differentiating between combatants and civilians.

Israel maintains troops in a self-declared “security zone” running around 10 kilometers (six miles) inside Lebanon along the border.

Violence has decreased since a ceasefire following a US-Iran understanding in June, and a US-sponsored Lebanon-Israel framework agreed later that month.

The framework deal involves the disarmament of Hezbollah, a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon’s south and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the region, starting in test areas known as “pilot zones,” but the process has largely stalled.

Kallas says that in the US-sponsored Israel-Lebanon deal “there should be somebody who is verifying whether the parties are keeping to their agreements.”

“So, as long as you don’t have any kind of international force yet ready to do that… it’s dangerous when one mission like UNIFIL ends and the other one has not started yet,” Kallas says.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

Partial road closures in place around Bnei Brak ahead of large Haredi demonstration

Route 4 has been partially closed in both directions around the central Israel city of Bnei Brak in anticipation of a planned ultra-Orthodox demonstration scheduled to start at 4 p.m.

Police say that the key road is closed to traffic between the Aluf Sadeh and Em Hamoshavot interchanges.

The public is also warned that there may be heavy traffic and additional road closures on Road 481 in Bnei Brak, and is encouraged to use alternate routes.

Today’s protests against the arrest of Haredi draft dodgers are expected to be particularly large, because the entire hardline Jerusalem Faction has been directed to attend, rather than smaller groups within the organization.

Protesters are also expected to block highways at the entry to Jerusalem, and delays are expected in and around the city.

Palestinian sentenced to life for killing Staff Sgt. Amit Ben-Ygal in 2020

Sgt. First Class Amit Ben-Ygal, who was killed when a rock was thrown at his head during an arrest raid in the northern West Bank village of Yabed on May 12, 2020. (Social media)

A military court sentences Palestinian Nazmi Abu Bakr to life imprisonment for killing IDF Staff Sgt. Amit Ben-Ygal during an arrest raid in the West Bank village of Yabed, west of Jenin, in May 2020.

Abu Bakr is convicted of intentionally causing death – the military-law equivalent of murder in the West Bank – after throwing part of a brick weighing between nine and 11 kilograms from a rooftop at Israeli troops. It struck Ben-Ygal in the head, killing him.

The court also convicts Abu Bakr of obstruction of justice for hiding evidence after the attack and orders him to pay more than NIS 4 million ($1.3 million) in compensation.

Haredi protester knocked to the ground while holding onto moving car at anti-draft rally blocking entrance to Jerusalem

As thousands of ultra-Orthodox boys and men protest against military conscription across the country, footage shows a Haredi youth being knocked to the ground by a car that he and another protester were holding on to. The driver, who was blocked by the demonstration, was pulling away at the Chords Bridge entrance to Jerusalem, footage shows.

The Haredi protester is later reported to have been lightly injured.

רכב דוהר אל תוך קבוצת מפגינים במחאות נגד מעצר העריקים בכניסה לירושלים | תיעוד @daniel_grovais pic.twitter.com/f9lyHH0ZEs

— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) October 8, 2026

About 1,000 protesters have blocked roads in Jerusalem as the extremist Jerusalem Faction holds protests there and in Bnei Brak over the arrest of Haredi draft dodgers.

‘The Israelis we aspire to be’: Herzog awards civilian heroism medals to six who thwarted flydubai terror attack

President Isaac Herzog presents the Presidential Award for Civilian Heroism to six passengers who acted to prevent a terror attack aboard a flydubai flight on September 30, during a ceremony at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, October 8, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

President Isaac Herzog awards the Presidential Medal for Civilian Heroism to six Israelis who helped thwart a terror attack aboard flydubai Flight FZ1073 last week, during a ceremony at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem.

The six honorees include Yaniv Hayun, Tzvika Manes, Or Pardilov and Asaf Rajuan, who helped subdue the Omani copilot after he stabbed the aircraft’s captain; Dr. Shota Musayev, who provided lifesaving medical treatment to the wounded pilot; and Tali Manes, who first raised the alarm.

“You are the six individuals who prevented a major aviation disaster. A disaster that would have changed the face of the country and the Middle East,” Herzog tells them. He also expresses his gratitude to Captain Smit Machchhar, the replacement pilots who took over the aircraft, and “all the other passengers who lent a hand.”

“The civilian bravery and resourcefulness demonstrated by the heroes gathered here cannot absolve us of the obligation to obtain full answers,” he adds, amid heightened scrutiny and mounting reports of security and government failures in the oversight of foreign flights in the years leading up to the attack.

“This moment is also a reminder to us all. A reminder of the society in which we wish to live, of the Israelis we aspire to be…A society in which we do not ask who belongs to which camp, but rather who needs our help right now,” he says ahead of upcoming tense elections in Israel.

ToI poll: Anti-Netanyahu bloc regains lead, Eisenkot’s Yashar comes 1st with Likud in 2nd place

The bloc of parties supporting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has fallen back below the opposition bloc in the latest poll by The Times of Israel’s sister site, Zman Yisrael, after appearing to pull ahead in recent surveys, including the previous Zman Yisrael poll on October 1.

Netanyahu’s Likud party has also dropped after last week’s poll found it was tied for the most seats with Gadi Eisenkot’s opposition Yashar faction.

However, neither Netanyahu’s bloc nor the bloc of the four Jewish-led parties opposing him is close to winning a majority in the 120-seat Knesset in the October 27 election, the poll finds.

Were the elections held today, the poll finds that the four Jewish-led parties opposed to Netanyahu would win 55 seats, six short of a majority in the 120-member Knesset, while the parties supporting Netanyahu would win 51. The 51 total includes Ofer Winter’s People of Israel party, with four seats. Winter has extensively criticized Netanyahu, but says he will still sit in a coalition headed by him.

The mainly Arab Ra’am and Joint List parties, which also oppose Netanyahu but, except for Ra’am’s presence in the 2021-2022 Naftali Bennett- and Yair Lapid-led government, have not been included in governing coalitions, would win 14 seats in total.

Sitting atop the poll is Eisenkot’s Yashar with 24 seats, followed by Likud with 20.

Next come opposition party B’Yachad with 13 seats and its ally Yisrael Beytenu with 10. The Joint List is next with a projected nine seats.

Hot on their heels are ultra-Orthodox Shas and United Torah Judaism and the left-wing Democrats, with eight seats apiece.

The far-right Otzma Yehudit is projected to win six seats, while Arab Ra’am and far-right Religious Zionism-Zehut would each win five.

Rounding out the list is Winter’s People of Israel with the minimum four seats required to enter the Knesset.

A non-aligned party led by Yoaz Hendel and Yaron Zelekha, and Benny Gantz’s Blue and White, both fail to pass the electoral threshold.

The poll was conducted on October 7 and 8 by Yossi Tatika of Tatika Research & Media in collaboration with the Adgenda panel, and surveyed a total sample of 500 respondents with a margin of error of ±4.4%.

Police working to disperse Haredi protesters in Jerusalem

Haredi protesters block cars during an anti-enlistment demonstration in Jerusalem on October 8, 2026. The two protesters on the right hold a sign reading, 'either Haredi or military.' (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Police say they have begun dispersing hundreds of Haredi protesters who “began disrupting public order, blocking traffic routes, physically clashing with drivers and causing damage to cars” near the Chords Bridge entrance to Jerusalem.

Officers are using protest dispersal measures to open up the roads, police say.

Canadian writer Anne Carson wins 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature

Canadian writer Anne Carson attends the 75th National Book Awards at Cipriani Wall Street on November 20, 2024 in New York City. (Dimitrios Kambouris/AFP)

Canadian poet and writer Anne Carson has won the 2026 Nobel Prize in Literature “for her bold and inventive oeuvre that, in playful dialogue with the classical tradition, has created new forms for contemporary literature,” the award-giving body says on Thursday.

The prize is awarded by the Swedish Academy and is worth 12 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million).

Canadian poet and essayist Carson’s work often blends verse, prose, dialogue and translation in a genre-defying mix.

She is widely known for her translations of classical Greek literature, which heavily influences her work, which ranges from opera libretti to literary criticism and verse novels such as “Autobiography of Red” from 1998.

Her style is exemplified in “Norma Jeane Baker of Troy” from 2019, a performance piece which mixes the stories of Helen of Troy in Euripides’ play “Helen” and Marilyn Monroe.

Carson takes a place beside luminaries such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Alice Munro and Ernest Hemingway as a recipient of the award, which often divides opinion among book lovers.

Established in the will of Swedish dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel, the prizes for achievements in literature, science and peace have been awarded since 1901.

Police chief, amid Haredi demonstrations: Protesting is a right, disrupting public order is not

After Haredi anti-enlistment protesters blocked roads in and around Jerusalem and Bnei Brak, police chief Daniel Levy has ordered commanders to “prepare accordingly and act resolutely to prevent disruptions, road blockages and harm to routine,” police say in a statement.

Levy “clarifies unequivocally: ‘Protesting is a right, disrupting public order is not,'” the statement says, adding that police will “not hesitate to arrest disrupters.”

Extremist Haredi rioters shut down Shas event; Deri, Malkieli escorted out by police

Rioters from the extremist ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem faction shut down a Shas party event attended by chairman Aryeh Deri and MK Michael Malkieli in the ultra-Orthodox central West Bank settlement of Modiin Illit today, Haredi media reports.

Deri is seen in some Haredi circles as too accommodating to demands to draft ultra-Orthodox men to the military.

Footage published online shows youths banging on the glass doors of the event hall as Deri speaks.

מחאת הפלג הירושלמי בזמן נאום יו״ר ש״ס אריה דרעי בכנס תמיכה של רבנים בעיר מודיעין עילית. pic.twitter.com/5mVhDd5eXD

— שמואל גיגי | shmuel guigui (@ShmuelGuigui) October 8, 2026

Separate footage published by ultra-Orthodox outlet Behadrei Haredim shows that youths managed to open another glass door, clashed with attendees at the entrance and threw water inside.

Police say they dispatched officers to break up the gathering and helped the lawmakers leave.

“There was no damage or injuries, and order was reestablished,” police say.

EgyptAir pilot posts video of El Al plane at Italian airport, sparking concern after flydubai attack

An Egyptian pilot has gone viral for posting a video on Instagram yesterday in which he zoomed in on an El Al airplane in Italy with a remixed version of a 1973 speech by then-Egyptian president Anwar el-Sadat promising revenge against Israel playing over it.

In the speech, delivered during the Yom Kippur War, Sadat promised that Egypt would take revenge against Israel, saying: “Let the Israelis remember what I always said: ‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’.”

The audio of Sadat’s speech plays in the Instagram video as an EgyptAir plane pulls in next to the parked El Al plane.

An EgyptAir pilot named Osama Mansour posted a video of an El Al aircraft in Italy, with a clip of a speech by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in the background: "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and violence for violence". pic.twitter.com/4Bwxd3WDts

— Straturka (@straturka) October 8, 2026

The video was uploaded to Instagram and Facebook by Osama Mansour, who, according to his social media, is a pilot for EgyptAir.

It appears to have attracted attention and concern due to the timing, having been posted a week after the attempted terror attack aboard flydubai Flight FZ1073.

As of Thursday evening, the video has over 6,200 likes on Instagram. Most of Mansour’s other posts have between 20 and 100 likes.

Route 4, Jerusalem entrance reopen after Haredi anti-draft protest; three arrested including 1 for riot targeting soldier

Police say Route 4 and the entrance to Jerusalem have reopened after Haredi protesters against military enlistment blocked both areas.

Two protesters on Route 4, near Bnei Brak, were arrested for assaulting officers in a riot after police declared the demonstration there illegal, police say.

In Jerusalem, officers used force to disperse dozens of protesters who encircled a soldier, police say. The soldier was rescued unharmed, and a suspect was arrested, police add.

An Israel Hayom reporter on the scene says the soldier was Haredi, and publishes footage that shows Border Police officers scuffling with protesters. Police used a stun grenade, the reporter says.

עם רימון הלם ובאלימות: המשטרה מנסה לחלץ את חייל חרדי שנחסם pic.twitter.com/dbcljnAH5a

— יעקב הרשקוביץ | Yaakov hershkowitz (@yaakov_hershko) October 8, 2026

Iran nuclear chief says country won’t abandon enrichment or hand over its uranium

Iran will not abandon uranium enrichment or hand over its uranium, state media reports, citing the head of the country’s Atomic Energy Organization Mohammad Eslami.

Dismissing renewed US threats against Iran’s nuclear facilities as “nothing new,” Eslami says enrichment was “an inseparable part” of the nuclear process.

IDF says it killed two Hamas operatives, including commander involved in holding 3 hostages

A graphic released by the IDF on October 8, 2026, shows Hamas operatives Muhammad Muhsen Nimr Yazji and Muhammad Fawzi Muhammad Awad Gamal, who were killed in Israeli strikes in Gaza City. (Israel Defense Forces)

The IDF says it killed two additional Hamas operatives in separate Gaza City strikes this week, including a commander involved in holding Israeli hostages captive during the war.

According to the military, Muhammad Muhsen Nimr Yazji, a commander in Hamas’s Shati Battalion, was involved in holding former hostages Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Matan Angrest in the Gaza City area after they were abducted during the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel. He was killed Monday.

A second operative, Muhammad Fawzi Muhammad Awad Gamal of Hamas’s Daraj-Tuffah Battalion, was killed Tuesday in Gaza City’s Sabra neighborhood.

The IDF says the two had recently “advanced plans for attacks against IDF troops and Israeli civilians and worked to rebuild Hamas’s capabilities,” and were targeted “to remove the threat.”

Defense minister orders ban on pro-Palestinian activist during West Bank olive harvest, Yesha Council says

Palestinians harvest olives with the assistance of Israeli and foreign volunteers in the West Bank town of Rantis, October 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Leo Correa)

The Yesha Council representing settlement municipal bodies in the West Bank says that Defense Minister Israel Katz has given instructions to issue exclusion orders against pro-Palestinian activists seeking to assist Palestinian olive growers during the harvest season, which is now underway.

Multiple spokespeople for Katz and the Defense Ministry fail to respond to requests for confirmation that such instructions had been given.

Yesha Council head Israel Ganz asked Katz earlier this week to prevent activists “who are coming to the olive harvest area to create provocations and confrontations.”

Ganz noted that the Global Sumud Flotilla organization, which has twice tried to break the blockade on Gaza with large flotillas, is assisting activists who wish to come to the region during the olive harvest season, along with other groups including Go Palestine, Protect the Harvest, Faz3a and the International Solidarity Movement.

“Following the request, the defense minister directed that action be taken to issue administrative exclusion orders against activists whose activities are found to endanger public order and security in the area,” Yesha says.

Neither Yesha nor the spokespeople contacted by The Times of Israel for Katz and the defense ministry have replied to questions regarding how “endangering public order and security” has been defined.

“We will not allow extremist activists—whether Israeli or foreign—to reach the region to instigate provocations and confrontations. The olive harvest season will not be turned into a tool for creating deliberate friction on the ground,” Ganz says.

Despite Ganz’s comments, Israeli civil rights organizations have recorded significant spikes in extremist settler violence against Palestinian olive growers during the olive harvest season in recent years, part of an apparent effort to deprive them of an important source of income.

The Yesh Din group has recorded 109 incidents of alleged violence by settler extremists and IDF soldiers against Palestinians in 75 West Bank towns connected to the current olive harvest season between September 27 and October 6.

In the 2025 harvest season, there were multiple incidents in which the IDF declared entire Palestinian towns to be closed military zones in order to stop activists assisting olive growers on the grounds that they would initiate “provocations” and “confrontations.”

Numerous activists were arrested and deported for violating the orders in the 2025 season, some of whom were banned from returning to Israel, including some Jewish activists.

Shin Bet: 72 residents of southern Israel arrested on security charges since start of this year

The Shin Bet internal security service says that since the start of this year it has arrested 72 residents of the south and indicted about 50 of them, over “activity that endangers the security of the state,” including “promoting terrorist action, smuggling arms at the border.” All but five of the people arrested are Israeli citizens, according to the Shin Bet.

Among the people who were indicted are six Israeli citizens from the Bedouin town of Segev Shalom who were charged earlier this year in the Beersheba District Court with “serious terrorist crimes” in two separate cases, the Shin Bet says.

The first case involved an attempt to form a “military battalion in the town” in the style of West Bank “terrorist battalions” out of “Palestinian affinity,” and the second plot involved a plan to attack Beersheba’s popular Forum nightclub “out of identification with various terrorist organizations, including Islamic State and Hamas,” the agency says.

The two cases are the only examples given for the indictments in the Shin Bet statement. Both were made public by the Shin Bet earlier this year, and it’s unclear what prompted the agency to issue today’s statement.

An unnamed senior Shin Bet official cited in the statement says those and other cases “demonstrate the security risk from the formation of cells of Israeli citizens, some of which are quasi-military, that seek to promote terrorist attacks on Israeli territory.”

The suspect in the Forum case, Abdullah Gergawi, was also “in contact with Islamic State activists and expressed intent to go to Islamic State combat zones abroad,” the Shin Bet says.

When police and the Shin Bet first made the plot public in August, they said the 20-year-old suspect was arrested in July for allegedly planning to car-bomb the nightclub, and had also been in contact with “a person who presented himself as a Palestinian terror operative.”

In the Segev Shalom battalion case, the Shin Bet says five young men were indicted: A “cell leader,” who had worked to replicate the West Bank battalion model in Segev Shalom and incited to terrorism on social media; a person who agreed in principle to carry out the commander’s plans for a shooting attack at the Segev Shalom police station and a stabbing and shooting attack at the Beersheba Central Bus Station; an “engineer,” who watched instructional material on explosives and was “responsible for preparing explosives against Israeli security forces”; a person who “expressed agreement” to take part in the proposed Segev Shalom police station attack; and another person who also agreed to join the Segev Shalom cell, had planned for the past two years to carry out a stabbing in the name of Islamic State, and “himself planned to carry out an independent bombing attack when released from prison.”

When the police and the Shin Bet first made the case public in July, they reported just four people who were arrested and indicted, including the commander and the engineer.

The statement at the time also referred to the Segev Shalom group as a cell, not a battalion, and did not mention any “Palestinian affinity.” It said the commander had decided to form a terrorist framework to fight Israeli security forces following the 2021 riots in mixed Jewish-Arab cities in Israel.

US imposes new sanctions on Iran’s shadow fleet

The Trump administration has imposed fresh sanctions on Iran targeting individuals, networks and 17 vessels for transporting its crude, oil products and petrochemicals, in the latest act of US economic warfare on Tehran, the Treasury Department says.

The sanctions are part of the department’s “Operation Economic Outcast,” which aims to cut Tehran’s funding for the war, missile construction, cyberattacks and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps or IRGC.

“Today’s action represents the most significant blow yet to Iran’s remaining illicit maritime infrastructure by neutralizing the vast majority of the shadow fleet,” a Treasury official tells reporters in a call. “Treasury is cutting off the regime’s last major source of illicit revenue and strengthening international pressure to hold Tehran accountable.”

The move boosts pressure on Iranian oil sales after the US reimposed its blockade of Iranian ports on July 14 following the breakdown of a memorandum of understanding between Tehran and Washington.

Iran only has about 20 million barrels of crude oil left on vessels outside of the blockade, a Treasury official says. The world uses about 100 million barrels of oil per day.

Mamdani defends Oct. 7 statement that infuriated Jewish leaders, attendance at vigil

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani attends a coexistence vigil marking the third anniversary of the October 7 massacre, October 7, 2026, in New York. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is questioned about his handling of the October 7, 2023, anniversary during a press conference.

Mamdani’s statement yesterday morning mourned the Israelis killed on October 7, but the bulk of the statement trained its fire on Israel, accusing the Jewish state of genocide, apartheid and war crimes.

Later in the day, anti-Zionist protesters raged at Mamdani while he attended a vigil for those killed on both sides of the conflict, calling him a “traitor.”

Asked about the turmoil from both sides, Mamdani says at the press conference, “I was proud to attend last night’s vigil, as I did last year, to listen to testimonies of family members of those who were killed.”

“As for those protesting me, I am the mayor of New York City and this is what I signed up for,” he says.

Mamdani says the anniversary marked three years since “unthinkable devastation” in the Hamas attack, and that “the Israeli government used and continues to use that day, those war crimes as a justification for an ongoing genocide.”

Mamdani accuses Israel of genocide six times during the press conference.

“There must be room to mourn the lives of the more than 1,100 Israelis that Hamas killed three years ago. There must be room to mourn the 74,000 Palestinians the Israeli government has killed since,” he says.

Asked why he has released videos from the City Hall press office for Nakba Day and other Palestinian advocacy, but not for October 7, Mamdani says, “It is critically important to be able to mourn for all of those who were killed and have been killed since, given that we know this is ongoing as opposed to something simply that was three years ago.”

He declines to say if he would change anything about his October 7 statement after the backlash.

“The statement, the attendance, it all speaks to a reckoning with horror and a horror that devastated the lives of New Yorkers three years ago and it also continues to devastate New Yorkers today,” he says.

Netanyahu’s Oct. 7 military secretary: There are ‘many gaps’ between what happened before Hamas attack and what is being told to the public

Retired IDF general and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's former military secretary Avi Gil speaks to Channel 12 in an interview aired on October 8, 2026. (Screenshot, Channel 12)

There is “undoubtedly” a gap between what happened in the lead-up to the October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks, and what the public is being told, says retired IDF general Avi Gil, who served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military secretary before the Hamas onslaught and in the first year of the subsequent war.

“There are many gaps,” Gil says, speaking to Channel 12 in a lengthy interview.

Over the last three years, he says, “a gap has opened up between the facts, the truth, between what happened, between what was said, and what is being presented to the public today.”

Gil says that the 55-page document Netanyahu gave to the state comptroller as part of the ombudsman’s investigation in February and released to the public “does not reflect what I saw, what I heard, and the deliberations in which I participated.”

“It reflects some of it,” says Gil, who is pressed as to whether the material was false and thus potentially criminal. “It does not faithfully reflect everything said in discussions. It doesn’t even reflect half the picture,” he says.

Gil filled 16 notebooks with handwritten notes on what he saw and heard during his tenure.

He says that he has decided to speak publicly because a state commission of inquiry into October 7 has not been created, and says that last week’s flydubai incident was also a major factor. If a commission is set up, it will get all the material he has compiled and archived for safekeeping.

Most critical, he says, were requests from bereaved families and survivors to tell the public what he knows.

He says everything that unfolded must be thoroughly examined; otherwise it will happen again.

Warnings about weak deterrence, impending war were presented to PM before Oct. 7, says his former top military aide

Avi Gil, the retired general who served as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military secretary before and after October 7, 2023, says there were repeated warnings from top security officials about an impending war in the weeks and months before the invasion and massacre, though none about the specific scenario that unfolded three years ago.

“For weeks, documents were submitted,” he tells Channel 12. “The security establishment described a reality in which our enemies identify the fissure [in society], identify weakening, and damage to our deterrence.”

The warnings took place over a bitter public fight around proposed reforms to Israel’s judicial system.

“Was there a specific, focused warning about a scenario like an attack like this from Gaza? The answer is unequivocally no,” he says.

“Did we start to recognize in the security establishment damage to our deterrence, our enemies looking differently at Israel? The answer is unequivocally yes,” says Gil. “And it was presented at all echelons.”

He says he personally delivered a warning to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about a possible impending war from Shin Bet Director Ronen Bar in July 2023, in which Bar formally stated that he was “conveying a warning of war,” as the coalition pushed through the first major piece of legislation in Netanyahu’s judicial overhaul package.

“I went to the prime minister in the hospital,” he says, referring to a weekend in July when the premier was hospitalized for dehydration, “in order to give him three things – the weekend’s intelligence report, a personal letter from the IDF chief of staff that he asked be delivered to him on the eve of the legislation, and a classified phone call with the Shin Bet director that I connected.”

He refuses to reveal the content of the letter or the call.

“The former Shin Bet director spoke accurately,” he says when asked if Bar’s subsequent account about warning Netanyahu that war was coming was correct.

He says Bar was expecting that Netanyahu would quickly summon him for further discussion, but this did not happen.

He notes that the IDF chief and defense minister sent two very senior officers to speak to legislators about the warning signs, and that they were not given a hearing. “At least listen to them,” he says. “You don’t have to accept their stances.”

It is put to him that the defense establishment was “in complete hysteria” that a war was imminent and Israel was not ready, and the government “was carrying on as though everything is fine.”

Gil says the heads of the defense establishment indeed felt that way, and notes that defense minister Gallant described the situation in that way.

How could it be that the defense establishment was not ready, he is asked, and replies that “there is no disputing the colossal failure of all hierarchies, and first and foremost, the defense authorities.”

Why, Gil is asked, didn’t he grab Netanyahu by the lapels and try to impress the dangers upon him? He replies that the prime minister heard the warnings about an impending war from all the key security chiefs. “There were many discussions. Many.”

“Everything that the security establishment knew was said [to Netanyahu],” Gil says.

He is reminded of a published document with his signature stating that Bar urged that Israel carry out assassinations of Hamas leaders in Gaza in this period, and that this did not happen. “That document is accurate,” Gil says.

It is also put to him that Netanyahu did not approve multiple requests for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar to be targeted. “There were recommendations for targeted strikes in Gaza, and they were not approved,” Gil says.

Putin tells Iranian president Russia will ‘do everything’ to help end war with US

Russian President Vladimir Putin held talks with Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian today and promised to “do everything” to help end the Middle East conflict, Russian news agencies report.

“We are ready to do everything that is in our power to contribute to the settlement of this situation,” says Putin ahead of a regional summit in the Central Asian nation of Turkmenistan, adding that Iran had made “real efforts to end the war” started by the US and Israel on February 28.

Putin notes the “positive evolution” in relations between Iran and Russia.

The two have reinforced diplomatic and military links since Russia launched its war in Ukraine in February 2022, becoming increasingly reliant on each other.

Both leaders arrived this evening ahead of the summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) — a grouping of former Soviet nations — in the resort of Avaza on the Caspian Sea.

The presidents last met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Kyrgyzstan in September.

Ukraine and Western countries have accused Iran of supplying Russia with Shahed drones and short-range missiles for use in the military campaign.

Russia has been accused of supplying targeting data to Iran for its strikes on US interests in the Middle East.

The meeting came as talks between Tehran and Washington appear to be at an impasse. Pezeshkian said this week that negotiations with Washington were “meaningless.”

Netanyahu’s ex-military secretary lays out intel received in hours before Oct. 7 attacks, and when he woke the PM

Then-Military Secretary Maj. Gen. Avi Gil arrives at the Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, January 3, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former military secretary, who was in the post on October 7, 2023, gives a detailed account of the intelligence received in the hours before the Hamas attack and of when he decided to wake the premier.

Overnight October 6-7, intelligence indicating a possible attack “flowed through the systems” as it was supposed to, says Avi Gil in an interview with Channel 12. “The information reached the intelligence computers in the office of the head of the Military Intelligence Research Division, the head of Military Intelligence, the prime minister’s military secretary, and the intelligence office of the military secretary.”

“The intelligence flowed there all night,” says Gil, describing “suspicious signs [from Gaza], along with signs that explain why they are routine, without any urgency in terms of time.”

Whatever information IDF military intelligence received that night was received by the aforementioned offices as well, he says.

Gil explains that thousands of documents reach the offices in a day, including overnight.

At 3:55 a.m. on October 7, Gil says, his intelligence officer received information on what Israeli intelligence was seeing in Gaza, along with a phone call from the intelligence personnel who sent it to verify that the officer saw the message.

The intelligence message contained the terms “routine” and “not unusual” multiple times, Gil notes. The document also said that further assessments would take place later in the day, adding to the impression that there was no emergency at hand.

“Therefore, he made the professional, considered decision” not to wake Gil, which in turn meant that the prime minister didn’t see the material right away, says Gil of his intelligence aide, “because in his eyes, there is no urgency.” He stresses that this officer is “dedicated, professional and [healthily] skeptical.”

He says there were “certainly” other cases when he, Gil, was not woken up because the material was not deemed sufficiently urgent.

The IDF chief of staff and Shin Bet chief “do not call the prime minister directly,” Gil stresses in response to a question asking why they didn’t phone Netanyahu. The way for them to arrange a conversation with the prime minister, he says, is through the military secretary.

Gil says he himself was woken by a phone call at 6:12 a.m. from Shin Bet director Ronen Bar’s chief of staff. Bar’s chief of staff told him that they had to speak on the secure phone about “the south.”

They held that conversation at 6:17 a.m., he says.

The Shin Bet official told him that there were suspicious signs from Gaza, including Hamas leaders going underground and the activation of Israeli SIM cards [suggesting that the people with those phones were intending to enter Israel], but that there were also reasons to believe that nothing out of the ordinary was about to happen. He also told Gil that it was not urgent, and there would be situational assessments later that day.

The Shin Bet official also said that an elite Shin Bet force was being sent toward Gaza just in case.

Did it occur to Gil to wake Netanyahu, Gil is asked. “For sure, but before I update the prime minister I have to speak to at least one other body, the IDF, which is responsible for Gaza.” He says he called IDF chief Herzi Halevi’s chief of staff at 6:22 or 6:23 for four or five minutes, “and while we were talking, after a few minutes, my telephone starts to vibrate with multiple alerts of rocket fire in the south. This, he confirms, was “at 6:29 a.m.”

That was when he called Netanyahu on WhatsApp to wake him up.

“Prime minister, Hamas has begun very significant rocket fire,” Gil says he told him.

“I connect it to the intelligence I received 10 minutes before,” says Gil. “I assess that Hamas has begun a major surprise attack.” He told Netanyahu that he was going to gather information and call him on a secure line as soon as he had more information.

The purpose of the conversation, says Gil, was “to tell the prime minister that something was happening, big or small… and bring him to a secure line.”

Asked why he didn’t call Netanyahu on the secure “red phone” from the start, he explained that the prime minister does not walk around with a secure phone on or near him.

The secure conversation took place at 6:40 a.m., he says.

“I told the prime minister, we are at war,” says Gil. “I gave him information on what has happened. He gave a number of instructions,” he continues, without going into further detail.

Netanyahu has said that if he had been woken earlier in the night, he could have taken measures to halt the Hamas invasion.

Gil stresses that the army doesn’t need to wait for instructions from the prime minister to begin calling up reserves or targeting Hamas leaders.

When it is put to Gil that Netanyahu has accused Israel’s October 7, 2023 defense chiefs, including Shin Bet head Ronen of deliberately choosing not to wake him in the hours before the invasion, suggesting a betrayal, Gil makes clear those claims are false.

“Let’s talk facts,” he urges. Of course “there was a failure,” he goes on, and “the interpretation” of what was unfolding in Gaza was “absolutely” wrong.

But, based on what he knows, the idea that someone deliberately withheld information “is a lie,” he says.

“So why would some people claim that?” he is asked, and says he has his own answers. “You can guess whatever you want,” he adds.

Man dies in car explosion at entrance to city of Or Akiva; cause of blast unknown

A man in his 40s has died in a vehicle explosion at the entrance to the northern city of Or Akiva, police and emergency services say.

The cause of the explosion is not yet known, police say, and an investigation has been opened into the incident.

Magen David Adom says its medics and paramedics were dispatched to the scene of the car blast, where they found a man, around 40 years old, suffering from multi-system injuries.

He was pronounced dead at the scene.

Netanyahu’s ex-military aide says he doesn’t know of any warning to the PM from Egypt or UAE before Oct. 7

Avi Gil, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military secretary on October 7, 2023, says he doesn’t know directly of reported warnings from Egypt and the United Arab Emirates before the Hamas attack.

Gil gives a rather odd response to a question on the matter from Channel 12, and says that he wasn’t at Netanyahu’s office when Emirati President Mohammed Bin Zayed allegedly warned the prime minister that Hamas was going to attack. Gil also doesn’t respond to the follow-up question about whether it is possible that he wouldn’t know about such a conversation.

Gil does offer that “not everything that happens in the Prime Minister’s Office appears in the official schedule.”

“I don’t know of” any warning from Egyptian intelligence chief Abbas Kamel, says Gil, answering a question about multiple reports of Kamel personally delivering a warning to Israel days before the attack.

Based on publicly available information on a private plane that landed at Ben Gurion Airport for an hour, Gil assesses that “someone, it seems, met someone who arrived from Egypt.”

That person in the know should be tracked down, he says.

“I imagine it wasn’t to give a holiday present.”

Police Central District chief resigns, reportedly seeks to run for top job in 2027 without being linked to Ben Gvir

Then-Southern District Police Commander Amir Cohen attends a ceremony marking the removal of the last hostage pin, following the return of the body of Ran Gvili from Hamas captivity days earlier, at the State Memorial Hall for Israel’s Fallen on Mount Herzl, in Jerusalem, on February 3, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The Israel Police says that Central District chief Assistant Commissioner Amir Cohen submitted his resignation to Chief Commissioner Daniel Levy today. Cohen reportedly wants to run for head of police from outside the organization when Levy’s term is up in August next year.

Levy accepted Cohen’s resignation, thanked him for 38 years of service, wished him well and saluted him for “valiantly leading” officers in the fight against Hamas-led invaders on October 7, 2023, when Cohen was Southern District chief, the police say in a statement.

Cohen, who was wounded in the fighting, thanked Levy “for the trust and joint path” and said he is ending his service “with a feeling of pride and great appreciation for Israel Police,” the statement adds.

Haaretz, citing senior police sources, reports that Cohen quit over tensions with Levy and is expected to try and succeed the police chief, but wants to do so from outside the organization to avoid being linked to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir.

Throughout his term, Cohen attended private events hosted by Ben Gvir and the minister’s associates, but is trying to “purge himself of Ben Gvir by resigning,” according to a source quoted by Haaretz.

The newspaper also reports Cohen had tensions with other senior officers who had criticized him over the Southern District’s conduct before and during the Hamas onslaught, including the approval the district had given to hold the Nova music festival, where Hamas killed hundreds of people.

Netanyahu didn’t ask to speak with security chiefs the morning of Oct. 7 – ex-military secretary

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, NSA chief Tzachi Hanegbi, and the prime minister's military secretary Maj. Gen. Avi Gil assessing the situation in the military headquarters in Tel Aviv on May 10, 2023. (Haim Zach/GPO)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military secretary on October 7, 2023 says the premier did not hold conversations with senior security officials in the first two hours of the Hamas attacks.

Netanyahu arrived at the Kirya in Tel Aviv between 8:30 – 8:45 a.m. on October 7, says Maj. Gen. (res) Avi Gil in an interview with Channel 12, two hours after Gil woke him.

In the two hours after the Hamas attack began, Gil says, Netanyahu did not ask him to get any security officials on the line.

Gil says he does not know whether Netanyahu was dysfunctional at the time. “I’m not a psychologist.”

Netanyahu met with Jonathan Urich and Eli Feldstein — two senior aides who are accused of taking money from Qatar — in the Kirya military HQ in the first days of the war, Gil says, even though they didn’t have security clearances.

Gil says he made sure they didn’t gain access to classified meetings.

He also says that he remembers an unexplained interest in alleged Egyptian violations of the peace treaty by introducing unauthorized forces into the Sinai Peninsula, though he doesn’t know whether that was part of a Qatari influence campaign, as some have claimed.

Netanyahu says his military secretary ‘chose not to wake PM up in time’ on Oct. 7, in response to damning interview

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv, October 8, 2023, alongside his military secretary, Maj. Gen. Avi Gil (center) and his chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman (right). (Amos Ben Gershom/ GPO)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his former military secretary Avi Gil knew “like others” about the impending Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, “and chose not to wake the prime minister up in time,” after Gil said in an interview with Channel 12 that Netanyahu had been warned about a coming military confrontation, gave a misleading account of the lead-up to the attack and tampered with the protocols of the early hours of the attack.

Gil’s remarks to the media were “an attempt to obscure the simple and painful truth about his failure,” Netanyahu says in response to the interview.

The premier later shares on X a two-minute segment from the pro-government Channel 14 tonight that purported to counter the lengthy Channel 12 interview.

The Channel 14 segment recycles earlier reports about the information Gil received in the hours before he woke Netanyahu up at the start of the attack, including that scores of Hamas fighters had activated Israeli SIM cards to communicate during the attack and that leaders of the terror group had gone underground into its tunnel networks.

Netanyahu could have saved lives of some hostages, but prioritized his political survival, his ex-military secretary charges

Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (L), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (center) and Maj. Gen. Avi Gil (right) during a hostage rescue operation in southern Gaza's Rafah, February 12, 2024 (Shin Bet)

In his bombshell interview with Channel 12, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s former military secretary is asked about claims that some of the hostages who died in captivity in Gaza could have been brought back alive, and that some of those who survived could have been returned earlier.

“We could have [done so],” he replies simply.

Gil indicates that Netanyahu caved to pressure from far-right ministers in his coalition who wanted intensified war against Hamas in Gaza and opposed hostage deals and ceasefires.

He is asked whether there were times when Netanyahu had taken a decision, but then far-right ministers said “there is no deal,” and Netanyahu changed course. “Yes,” he says.

“Over time, gaps developed between the recommendations of the defense authorities and maybe even the prime minister’s own wishes,” on the one hand, “and the decisions or recommendations of his ministers,” says Gil.

He is asked whether, simply put, hostages were murdered or died in captivity, when it was possible to bring them home alive, for political reasons.

“That is accurate,” he says. “They could have come back before.”

Pressed further as to whether he was present at a meeting where the prime minister decided in favor of “the government and politics, in other words for his own personal political survival,” over the lives of hostages in Gaza, Gil initially does not directly address the question, saying he does not want to give a superficial answer. “Factually,” he says, however, “that is exactly what happened.”

He adds that leadership requires looking at the full picture, and “political considerations are also part of the matter… [But ] did I think at the time that it was a mistake? Did I think it was right to prioritize the return of hostages? The answer is yes,” he says.

Gil is asked whether he was prevented from bringing a certain document into a cabinet meeting, and that a hostage deal consequently did not go ahead, and he says nothing.

When he meets with the families of hostages who died in Gaza, or with former hostages who spent longer in captivity than might have been avoided, Gil is asked, what does he says to them.

“That they are right,” he says. He says he sits with “people who came back from that hell, and yes, you know that some of them could have come back earlier.”

Gil is asked why the prime minister refrained from visiting Kibbutz Nir Oz and other Gaza-envelope communities for a long time, and says his interviewers should ask the Prime Minister’s Office. He says he, among others, did recommend that Netanyahu visit.

Asked, in retrospect, what he could have done differently, Gil notes that he was a uniformed soldier in the State of Israel for 35 years, “all my adult life,” and served in a senior role as the prime minister’s military secretary. “That cannot be taken away. I carry that with me. I see the holes. I meet the people who returned from Hamas captivity. And that is with me. It is inside of me.”

Asked whether the prime minister is “responsible” for the failures surrounding October 7, Gil says “yes,” and adds: “I don’t understand in what world you can disconnect the concept of leadership from the concept of responsibility.” As commander of the elite IDF Duvdevan undercover unit, he says, “I was responsible” whether an operation he ordered succeeded or failed. “There is no leadership without responsibility.”

Gil is asked whether he sometimes asks himself “how it happened to us, to the great IDF?”

“Sometimes?” he retorts, bitterly. “Every day.”

He lists multiple reasons for what went wrong, including the lack of questioning of false assessments, the primacy of intelligence material “that caused us to forget common sense” as regards what Hamas was preparing to do, and an exaggerated sense of Israel’s strength “that sometimes makes you feel that nothing [bad] will happen to you.”

Asked how history will judge Netanyahu, Gil, as often in the interview, says nothing.

And how history will judge his military secretary, Avi Gil, he says, “I don’t know. I hope that I base myself on true facts, and on that they will judge me.”

Eisenkot calls for criminal probe against Netanyahu after ex-military aide’s account of PM’s Oct. 7 actions; Liberman alleges treason

Yashar party chairman and former IDF chief of staff Gadi Eisenkot meets with families of former hostages, hostages who were killed in captivity in the Gaza Strip, and victims of the October 7 attack at the Families’ Sukkah at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, September 27, 2026. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Former IDF chief Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party says it has appealed to Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to probe whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lied to the state comptroller about the lead-up to the Hamas-led onslaught of October 7, 2023, after the premier’s former military secretary Avi Gil said in an interview with Channel 12 that the 55-page account that Netanyahu gave the comptroller earlier this year was misleading.

Eisenkot also takes Netanyahu to task over Gil’s allegation that the premier’s chief of staff tried to falsify a key protocol from the early minutes of the Hamas attack in the Gaza border region.

“While our brothers and sisters in the border region were slaughtered by Hamas, Netanyahu worked on changing protocols instead of saving them,” Eisenkot says on X. “Nothing will save him from the state commission of inquiry we’ll establish after the election.”

MK Avigdor Liberman, head of the hawkish anti-Netanyahu Yisrael Beytenu party, says in a video statement that Baharav-Miara should “order the immediate opening of an investigation against the prime minister and his people on charges of treason and conspiracy.”

Liberman also called on IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir to “prevent any attempt to use the IDF for political purposes solely to change the public agenda a moment before the election” on October 27.