For the second year in a row, the US has denied Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s visa application for entry into the country next week to speak at the UN General Assembly, a US official and a PA official tell The Times of Israel.
Abbas’s office was notified of the decision earlier today and similar rejections were issued for dozens of other PA officials who were hoping to travel with the president, the PA official says.
A second Palestinian official shared the rejection notice he received himself in which the reason marked was “Section 212(a)(3)(B) which prohibits the issuance of a visa to a person who at any time engaged in terrorist activities or was associated with a terrorist organization. This is a permanent ineligibility.”
It wasn’t immediately clear if Abbas’s own rejection was issued on the same grounds.
Against the backdrop of the ban, the Palestinian Mission to the UN has submitted a resolution that will be brought before the General Assembly tomorrow to allow Abbas to address the General Assembly virtually as he did last year.
US President Donald Trump’s administration justified the move last year by claiming that the PA had taken steps to undermine prospects for peace.
Washington didn’t elaborate at the time on its specific grievances with Ramallah, and the move was seen as part of an effort to undermine a conference that France and Saudi Arabia were hosting ahead of the General Assembly’s high-level week that was aimed at promoting a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
No such meeting is being held this year, but the Trump administration continues to hold a cold relationship with the PA.
A stolen IDF munition was fired a short while ago at a residential complex in the area of Kafr Qasim in central Israel, according to police.
There are no reports of injuries. Officers are searching for suspects, police say, adding that the incident is “apparently criminal” in nature, rather than nationalist.
The Ynet news site says the munition was a Light Anti-tank Weapon (LAW) shoulder-fired missile, and that it was fired toward a Jaljuliya complex where a crime family reportedly lives.
The FBI and US Coast Guard boarded two oil tankers bound for the United States to investigate after indications that the ships’ networks had been compromised by cyberattacks, officials say.
Investigators on Aug. 21 and Aug. 24 responded to reported network breaches of two foreign-flagged commercial oil tankers, and a multiagency team of cyber experts boarded both vessels in the Gulf of Mexico to assess potential harm to the ships’ operational and information technology systems, according to an FBI and Coast Guard statement.
“Currently, there are no reports of operational disruptions, vessel instability, physical danger to crews, or environmental impacts,” the statement says, adding that the crews of both ships had cooperated with investigators.
The statement did not identify a potential culprit believed responsible for the breaches.
Former vice president Kamala Harris plans to campaign with Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan next week in the party’s latest push to unify voters in a key battleground state that will help determine control of the Senate.
Harris and El-Sayed have spoken multiple times since she endorsed the progressive Democrat after his primary victory, but this is the first time they’ll appear publicly together.
Harris and El-Sayed will attend a roundtable focused on Black maternal health on Tuesday, according to his campaign spokesperson. El-Sayed is a doctor and the former head of health departments in Detroit and Wayne County.
“Vice President Harris looks forward to returning to Michigan to help turn out the vote in this critical state,” Eduardo Negrón, Harris’s spokesperson, said in a statement. “It is critical we flip the Senate so we can bring down prices and stand up to Donald Trump’s corruption.”
Some other top-ranking Democrats have thrown their weight behind El-Sayed after a bitter primary against Rep. Haley Stevens that highlighted divisions within their party, notably on US support for Israel.
Harris, who lost the 2024 presidential race to Trump, is seen as a possible 2028 candidate. Michigan will be the fifth state to vote in the Democratic presidential primary.
The IDF denies ever striking a building in Gaza City that collapsed overnight, killing at least 20 people.
Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for the Hamas-run Civil Defense in the Strip, claimed that the building was hit multiple times in 2024 and in March 2025.
In response to reports on the building collapse, the Israeli military asserts that “contrary to the claims, the IDF did not strike the building in question during the war.”
The House approves a resolution holding billionaire Leon Black in contempt of Congress, referring the matter to the Department of Justice after he defied the Oversight Committee’s subpoenas in its investigation into disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein.
The action was swift and without a formal vote, and now leaves it to the Justice Department to decide whether to seek criminal prosecution. Black has refused to respond to the subpoenas’ requests to appear and to turn over any potential nondisclosure agreements involving the investigation into Epstein.
Republicans and Democrats from the Oversight Committee joined in a bipartisan effort to advance the resolution forward.
Black’s lawyers have denounced the Oversight Committee’s pursuit of the former head of a private equity firm as an abuse of congressional power. They said he “had no knowledge of any of Epstein’s heinous conduct.”
NFL player Azeez Al-Shaair was fined more than $11,000 for wearing the name of a Palestinian girl killed by Israeli forces on his face markings last weekend, says a league spokesman.
Linebacker Al-Shaair had the words “Hind Rajab” written on his eye black — a sticker or paint frequently used by American football players to reduce glare — for the Houston Texans’ clash with the Buffalo Bills.
Kyrie Irving says he will cover a $11,492 fine that Texans linebacker Azeez Al-Shaair incurred for writing the name of a young Palestinian girl killed by Israel’s military on his eye black. pic.twitter.com/ljGY61LAhF
— Pop Base (@PopBase) September 16, 2026
Rajab was a five-year-old girl whose death in Gaza in 2024 after Israeli troops opened fire on her family’s stranded car became the subject of an Oscar-nominated docu-drama.
Long-standing NFL rules forbid personal messages of any kind, including political statements, to be displayed during game days. An NFL spokesman confirms to AFP that Al-Shaair was fined $11,941 for the breach.
He was also fined last season for a similar offense for a personal message, which read “Stop The Genocide.”
Al-Shaair, 29, from Florida, is a practicing Muslim who has frequently spoken out on the situation in Gaza.
Dallas Mavericks basketball star Kyrie Irving swiftly spoke out in support of Al-Shaair, offering to personally pay the footballer’s fine.
A day after the sixth anniversary of the Abraham Accords, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar meets with his Moroccan counterpart in the United States.
The meeting, hosted by US United Nations Ambassador Mike Waltz in New York, focused on a series of agreements to upgrade the bilateral relationship, according to the Foreign Ministry.
Sa’ar and Moroccan Foreign Minister Nasser Bourita agree to upgrade their diplomatic representation, appointing ambassadors and turning their diplomatic missions into full embassies.
They also agree to increase flights between the countries, hold high-level visits in the coming months, and include investment and tax agreements by the end of the year.
Yesterday, Waltz held an event at his residence to mark the anniversary with officials from all the other Abraham Accords countries as well — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Kazakhstan — a recent addition.
“The friendship between the Moroccan and Jewish peoples has deep roots and a rich history,” says Sa’ar. “The declaration we signed today outlines practical ways to upgrade ties between Israel and Morocco for the benefit of both peoples, and we will work to implement it.”
US Representative Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, says he will not support the sale of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel over concerns the munitions will not be used in accordance with international law.
US President Donald Trump’s administration is planning to sell to Israel a munitions package worth $2.8 billion, which will include tens of thousands of highly destructive 2,000-pound bombs, according to a US official familiar with the sale.
The leaders of congressional committees review sales under an informal process, but Meeks’s objection alone is not enough to prevent the president from going ahead with the sale.
Dozens of people led by right-wing provocateur Mordechai David are protesting outside the home of “NAZA” filmmaker Rachel Szor’s parents in central Israel’s Savyon, footage shows.
In one video, the protesters can be heard chanting “death sentence for traitors.” Protesters can also be seen hoisting signs that read “betrayal of IDF fallen” and “denounce the traitors among us.”
מרדכי דוד, רועי סטאר ועשרות נוספים מפגינים מול בית הוריה של רחל שור, יוצרת נז״א. במהלך המחאה זיהו מפגין נגדי, הקולנוען איתמר רוז, והחלו לרדוף אחריו ולדחוף אותו בקריאות ״עונש מוות לבוגדים״ pic.twitter.com/m2fkQQLjQQ
— אורי סלע Uri Sela (@uri_sela) September 16, 2026
Earlier today, David posted videos of himself from the offices of Local Call, the left-wing outlet that publishes investigations by Szor’s co-director Yuval Abraham, including those that form the basis of the film’s allegation that Israel used AI to systematically target civilians in Gaza.
David could be seen in one video yelling at one Local Call journalist, “I wouldn’t harass you even if you paid me,” as the journalist calls police on her phone.
David posted other videos calling on supporters to come to Savyon tonight, and vowed to hold similar protests outside the home of Abraham’s parents once he manages to track them down. According to David, Abraham’s parents have fled their address.
The filmmakers themselves are currently abroad, but when they get back to Israel, “wherever they go, we’ll chase them, legally… we’ll block them everywhere in the country,” David said.
The Houthis say that Saudi Arabian jets have carried out 40 airstrikes over the past day targeting western Yemen, where the Iran-backed group recently made substantial gains along the Red Sea coast.
“Saudi warplanes launched 40 airstrikes using F15 aircraft that took off from Khamis Mushait Airbase, targeting the provinces of Taiz, Marib, and Hodeidah over the past 24 hours,” Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree says in a statement on social media.
Democratic and Republican senators ask US President Donald Trump’s administration to declassify and release all information about a proposed agreement with Saudi Arabia on civil nuclear energy, including two classified “side letters” reached with Riyadh.
In a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Secretary of Energy Christopher Wright, which was seen by Reuters, the senators note that the government has reached dozens of these so-called 123 nuclear agreements with other countries without withholding such information.
“Access to the full text is required for the Senate and the public to have a clear understanding of the commitments being made on the nation’s behalf and those being made by Saudi Arabia to the United States,” the letter says.
The State and Energy departments do not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The letter was led by Democrats Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Ed Markey of Massachusetts and signed by 13 other Democratic senators, one independent who caucuses with Democrats, and two Republicans, Rand Paul of Kentucky and John Kennedy of Louisiana.
Trump sent the proposed agreement with Saudi Arabia to Congress in August, opening a 90-day window for lawmakers’ review and giving them an opportunity to try to pass a resolution of disapproval. Lawmakers have since been pushing for the declassification of the side letters, which were reached alongside the proposed deal, and also the release of related documents.
Three Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad operatives were killed in recent Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip, the military announces.
A strike earlier today in Gaza City killed Saeed Asaad Saeed Akrim, identified by the IDF as a commander in Hamas’s Daraj-Tuffah Battalion.
Akrim had been involved in placing explosive devices and advancing other attacks on Israeli troops, the IDF says.
The military says two separate strikes yesterday in northern Gaza killed Nimer Yasser Nimer Arshi, a rocket-launching Islamic Jihad operative in the Daraj-Tuffah area, and Ahmad Baza’at Saleh Shaer, a member of Hamas’s Shejaiya Battalion who planted explosive devices.
The three had been advancing attacks “while systematically violating the ceasefire,” and were killed to “remove the threat,” the army adds.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that he will introduce two bills to punish those who slander IDF soldiers abroad.
The first bill will introduce the option of revoking their citizenship, and the second will increase the sum they can be sued for if found guilty, Netanyahu says in a video, explicitly referencing Democrats party chief Yair Golan, former military advocate-general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi and the filmmakers behind the recent film “NAZA.”
“Their place isn’t here,” says Netanyahu, adding that he expects all Zionist parties to support the measures.
Meanwhile, Israel is changing course in its reaction to the film “NAZA,” Channel 12 reports.
According to an internal memo obtained by the outlet, Israel has realized that the movie that accuses the IDF of intentionally endangering civilians Gaza hasn’t created much buzz abroad, and Israel’s reaction is actually fanning the flames.
“Currently, the aggressive response from Israel is causing the conversation to move from the movie itself to accusations that Israel doesn’t allow freedom of speech,” an IDF source dealing with the response tells Channel 12. “Therefore we are lowering our media profile.”
Israeli diplomats tell the outlet even before Netanyahu released his video that the Prime Minister’s Office is “igniting the internal argument around the movie for political reasons an as part of the election campaign. One hand is trying to lower the profile, while the other hand is sending the head of the Shin Bet to investigate and ministers to demand that the filmmakers have their citizenship revoked.”
“Israel is stuck between what is right for it internationally and what is right electorally for politicians,” diplomats say.
The Second Authority commercial broadcasting regulatory body approves the sale of Channel 13, one of the two dominant commercial broadcasters in Israel, to the Merit Spread Foundation philanthropic group which has itself been backed by a group of hi-tech entrepreneurs, led by Wiz co-founder Assaf Rappaport.
The sale of Channel 13 has been at the center of a political imbroglio, due to the government’s opposition to the sale, apparently due to Rappaport’s outspoken criticism of the government, first over its judicial overhaul agenda and then over its handling of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.
Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi describes the decision as “unlawful,” noting that the government has “already determined that the decisions and outcomes of the unlawful council’s actions will be retroactively voided.”
The far-right Likud minister says the investors “gambled their money on a wild goose chase,” adding “the risk is on you.” The government in July vowed to reject a decision by the outgoing Second Authority Council which the High Court of Justice had explicitly authorized, sparking concerns of a constitutional crisis which may now re-emerge.
Approval of the sale of Channel 13 became a highly charged political and legal issue due to the government’s opposition to the sale of the channel to Merit because of Rappaport’s criticism of the government.
In March, Karhi made a series of controversial appointments to the Second Authority Council in which critics said were designed to thwart the buyout of Channel 13.
The High Court of Justice froze the appointments in May as it evaluated the case, and when Karhi apparently orchestrated a series of resignations from the outgoing council to deny it a quorum and thereby prevent it from approving the sale, the High Court issued a controversial decision saying the resignations would not be taken into account when considering the quorum.
This decision enabled the Second Authority Council, which currently has just seven members, to make a decision on the sale of Channel 13 to Rappaport, paving the way for today’s authorization.
In an unprecedented step, the government in July issued a cabinet resolution saying it would not respect a decision taken by the council under those circumstances, essentially rejecting the High Court’s ruling and sparking fears of a constitutional crisis.
Just last week, the High Court annulled three of Karhi’s appointments for a new council, and ordered all the other appointments made in March to be reviewed, leaving the outgoing seven-member council in place until that time.
The Lod District Court sentences Petah Tikva resident Alexander Granovsky to 13.5 years in prison for spying, vandalism and arson in late 2024 on behalf of Iran.
Separately, the Jerusalem District Court convicts four Palestinians from East Jerusalem who admit, as part of a plea deal, to participating in another late 2024 Iranian espionage scheme in exchange for money. Their punishments will be determined later.
Granovsky, in his 30s, was found guilty of spray-painting anti-government slogans, setting nine cars on fire and stalking the neighborhood of former IDF chief Benny Gantz in exchange for money from an Iranian agent. His is the harshest sentence yet against a person convicted of acting on behalf of Iran, the Central District Attorney’s Office says.
The court says the heavy punishment serves to “inform anyone who is tempted to act on behalf of a hostile entity in exchange for money, that they can expect a lengthy and unbearable jail sentence.”
Meanwhile, the Jerusalem court convicts brothers Mahmoud and Mamdouh Hader, 23 and 21, respectively; Omari Abu Hamida, 21; and Muhammad Taha, 21 of a separate plot. All but Taha are Israeli citizens. They and three other Israeli citizens from Beit Safafa were arrested in September 2024.
Proceedings are ongoing against the three other suspects, who include the alleged lead intermediary with the Iranian agent.
According to the plea deal, Abu Hamida and the younger Hader traveled with some of the other suspects to the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot and learned while there of an Iranian plot to assassinate an Israeli scientist. They are convicted of failure to prevent a terrorist act for their inaction.
The elder Hamida is convicted of aiding and abetting contact with a foreign agent for offenses including procuring a fake police license plate in order to produce a video of a purported attack on an Israeli police car.
Taha is also convicted of aiding and abetting contact with a foreign agent after he sent the Iranian agent, via the alleged intermediary, a video purporting to show a grenade being thrown at a Jewish home. The home was actually an empty house in the West Bank Palestinian village of Qatanna, near Jerusalem.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin has reportedly ruled that the Shin Bet will decide for itself whether to provide security for the heads of political parties ahead of the October 27 election.
According to Hebrew media reports, no other ministers showed up to today’s meeting of the ministerial committee overseeing Shin Bet affairs and therefore Levin made the decision himself.
Shin Bet chief David Zini’s decision last month not to provide Yashar party chief Gadi Eisenkot with security, despite a number of threats, was met with backlash from opposition figures. The Democrats party chief Yair Golan has also said he faces regular death threats.
The Advisory Committee for Personal Security recommended the Shin Bet provide security for Eisenkot, but the decision was ultimately left up to the ministerial committee. Earlier, the Shin Bet reportedly granted Eisenkot the right to hire private security but declined to provide the service itself.
A destroyed aircraft, shredded tents, trailers that have been ripped apart: images taken by US troops show significant damage from Iranian strikes targeting American military assets in the Middle East, CBS News reports.
The undated images — taken at a base in Saudi Arabia and two facilities in Kuwait — were provided to CBS by American personnel on condition of anonymity due to US military restrictions, the outlet said late last night.
“This is major damage to our bases that hasn’t been communicated to the American public,” CBS quotes one US service member as saying.
New photos obtained exclusively by CBS News reveal for the first time the widespread damage and destruction of buildings and vehicles at multiple U.S. positions across the Middle East, as a result of Iranian missile and drone attacks. The images were sent to CBS News by active… pic.twitter.com/MmOX1rQgwN
— CBS News (@CBSNews) September 16, 2026
“We’re standing there with our eyes closed getting punched in the face,” the service member adds.
The Pentagon’s inspector general released a report earlier this week that said the military’s Central Command (CENTCOM) — which is responsible for US forces in the Middle East — had reported widespread damage to American facilities and equipment.
CENTCOM said Iranian strikes “damaged and destroyed hundreds of buildings and structures at US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Oman, and Jordan,” the report says.
“In addition, dozens of US aircraft were destroyed or damaged” during the war, the report says.
The Defense Department estimated the cost of the war at $33.4 billion as of June 29, but that figure “does not include costs for infrastructure repairs,” according to the report.
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir says the Lebanese army needs to “significantly improve its effectiveness on the ground” against Hezbollah.
During a visit to the northern border today, Zamir tells officers that “the IDF is determined to demilitarize the area south of the Litani [River] of Hezbollah’s presence, alongside advancing the ongoing overarching objective of disarming the terror organization.”
“This objective cannot be advanced within a desired agreement with the Lebanese government as long as the Lebanese army does not significantly improve its effectiveness on the ground,” he says, according to remarks published by the IDF.
Zamir says the IDF “will not allow Hezbollah to rebuild its strength, restore its capabilities, or reestablish terror infrastructure in the area.”
Meanwhile, Zamir reiterates that in the coming months, the military will inaugurate a new “robotics” branch, which will see the IDF develop and expand the use of “unmanned capabilities.”
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani is not planning to join protests against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when Netanyahu visits New York for the United Nations General Assembly next week, Politico reports, citing an anonymous source with knowledge of Mamdani’s plans.
Mamdani has encouraged protests against Netanyahu and has joined some other demonstrations since taking office, such as a rally for nurses. He had not indicated he would join the anti-Netanyahu protests himself.
Mamdani, a longtime anti-Zionist activist, also protested against Israel before becoming mayor, while serving as a New York State assemblymember.
Mamdani is likely dissuaded from protesting due to complications involving police security and potentially further straining his relationship with Jewish groups.
Anti-Zionist activists like the Palestinian Youth Movement have announced protests during Netanyahu’s visit.
Leading Jewish groups will also rally against antisemitism outside the UN during the General Assembly.
The religious rights group ITIM submits a petition to the Central Elections Committee to disqualify Shas No. 6 Dror Amos from running in the October 27 election, arguing that he failed to resign from his senior public position within the legally required timeframe and continues to hold the post.
Amos, a reserve IDF major, currently heads the Haifa Religious Council and has remained in the position since joining Shas’s Knesset slate. ITIM argues that as a public official, he was required under Israeli law to resign at least 100 days before Election Day.
The organization separately calls on the Religious Services Ministry to immediately suspend Amos and place him on unpaid leave. It also notes that public employees are prohibited from participating in election campaigning, arguing that Amos cannot campaign for Shas while continuing to exercise the powers of his public position.
He “cannot have it both ways: managing religious services in the morning on behalf of the state and garnering votes for Shas in the evening,” says ITIM attorney Yair Mevorach Shaag.
More broadly, ITIM argues that Amos’s candidacy highlights an improper blurring of the line between state religious services and party politics, with a serving religious council chief moving directly into a prominent position on the slate of a political party.
“Religious services in the State of Israel belong to the entire public, not to any party apparatus,” says ITIM founder and chairman Rabbi Shaul Farber. “When a system intended to provide official, sensitive and fair services to every citizen becomes a political springboard, public trust in religious institutions collapses.”
Amos was a notable addition to the Sephardi ultra-Orthodox party, allowing Shas to prominently feature a reservist on its slate despite staunchly opposing efforts by the outgoing government to draft Haredi men.
Two pumping stations serving the vital East-West Pipeline in Saudi Arabia were damaged in an attack last week, with a repair timeline unclear, according to assessments from three oil and security sources.
Saudi Aramco, which operates the 1,200 km (745-mile) pipeline running across the Arabian Peninsula, did not respond to a request for comment. Saudi Arabia’s government media office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The pipeline, which has helped relieve the logjam in the Strait of Hormuz, temporarily shut down on Friday after a drone attack coming from Iraq, Saudi officials have said.
An Israeli citizen walks free from more than a decade in prison in Iraqi Kurdistan after facing the death penalty for the 2015 killing of a taxi driver.
Ben Chasin, a Kurdish Jew with Canadian and Israeli citizenship, traveled to Iraqi Kurdistan in 2015 to visit family and stayed to join Kurdish forces fighting the Islamic State, according to media reports.
A cab driver in Sulaymaniyah overheard him speaking in Hebrew, and threatened to turn him in to ISIS. He said that he shot the cab driver in self-defense.
Chasin was sentenced to death in 2020, but a campaign led by ultra-Orthodox groups in the US and Europe led to his sentence being overturned last year amid a financial settlement with the victim’s family.
Israeli Ben Hassin is free after 11 years in a prison in Iraq's Kurdish region. He is expected in Israel shortly. A death sentence over an accidental killing was lifted after a pardon last year. pic.twitter.com/9pEf03WEGr
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) September 16, 2026
“I’ve waited too long for this,” Chasin says in a video after being freed. “It’s tears of joy.” According to the video, Chasin will arrive in Israel this week.
Israeli commandos nabbed a “senior” Palestinian Islamic Jihad member during a raid in the West Bank town of Burqin, near Jenin, this morning, the military says.
Soldiers of the Duvdevan Commando Unit raided Burqin and apprehended Mohammed Saadi, following information on his whereabouts provided by the Shin Bet.
The IDF says Saadi was a senior member of a Jenin-area terror network that was dismantled in early 2025, was affiliated with Islamic Jihad, and was “involved in managing and directing funds for terror activities.”
סעדי שימש כמחבל בכיר בהתארגנות, היה מזוהה עם ארגון הטרור גא"פ, ועסק בניהול ובהכוונת כספים לפעילויות טרור נגד כוחות צה"ל ואזרחי מדינת ישראל.
כוחות הביטחון ימשיכו לפעול ביוזמה והתקפיות לסיכול טרור ברחבי אוגדת יהודה ושומרון ושמירה על ביטחון אזרחי מדינת ישראל pic.twitter.com/aVE4BnbNQG
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) September 16, 2026
Upon arriving in Paris ahead of his meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun says that he will discuss with his host “ongoing Israeli attacks” in southern Lebanon, the future of UNIFIL, and direct negotiations with Israel.
He also condemns the attempted Houthi drone attack on Mecca, calling it a “sinful assault,” according to a statement from the Lebanese presidency.
In Paris, Aoun will attend a meeting with Macron and King Abdullah II of Jordan meant to build international support for Lebanese troops as they deploy further across the country.
A Hamas commander who invaded Israel during the October 7 onslaught and took part in abducting tank soldiers was killed in a strike in the southern Gaza Strip last week, the military announces.
The strike on Thursday in Khan Younis killed Jihad Samih Mahmoud Ismail, identified by the IDF as a squad commander in Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force.
On October 7, 2023, Ismail invaded Israel and was involved in a battle with a tank crew deployed to the border, near the community of Nirim, according to the military.
The crew included commander Cpt. Omer Maxim Neutra, 21, driver Sgt. Shaked Dahan, 19, gunner Sgt. Nimrod Cohen, 19, and loader Sgt. Oz Daniel.
The IDF says Ismail took part in abducting the bodies of Neutra and Daniel, and in taking Cohen captive. Dahan was also killed in the battle, and his body was taken to Gaza separately. Cohen was freed in October 2025.
During the war, according to the military, Ismail was involved in carrying out attacks on Israeli troops in the Strip.
Recently, Ismail was involved in advancing attacks against troops and civilians, “in systematic violation of the ceasefire,” and he was “eliminated to remove the threat he posed,” the IDF adds.
The State of New York says that an order barring the state from doing business with entities that back the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement targeting Israel does not apply to foreign governments.
The UK, Canada and other countries announced a ban on trade with Israeli settlements last week. Experts have said that, while nominally targeting settlements, the boycott could have far-reaching effects on Israel’s economy.
Then-New York governor Andrew Cuomo enacted an executive order in 2016 that requires the state to withdraw assets from entities that support BDS.
The administration of Cuomo’s successor, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, says the order does not apply to the countries boycotting settlements, however, because state agencies cannot invest in foreign governments.
“Foreign governments do not fall into the category of entities that the State could invest in,” the state’s Office of General Services tells the Gothamist news outlet.
Hochul, a moderate Democrat, is generally supportive of Israel and has kept Cuomo’s anti-BDS order in place since she took office in 2021.
She is running for reelection against Jewish Republican Bruce Blakeman, who has hammered Hochul over her cooperative relationship with New York City’s anti-Zionist mayor, Zohran Mamdani.
Gaza’s Civil Defense, a rescue service operating under Hamas’s authority, says the death toll from the collapse of a multistory building in Gaza City this morning has risen to 20, including eight children.
According to the statement, 20 people were pulled alive from the rubble.
At a groundbreaking ceremony for a memorial for fallen Arabic-speaking Christian IDF soldiers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Israel is protecting Christians, and Christians are protecting Israel.
“We are facing a global campaign against Israel and the Israel Defense Forces,” says Netanyahu. “In this campaign, Israel and Israeli soldiers are portrayed not only as perpetrators of war crimes — which is the greatest absurdity that could possibly be said about the most moral army in the world — but Israel is also portrayed as a persecutor of minorities.”
Among recent incidents of vandalism and attacks against Christians, an IDF soldier was documented smashing a statue of Jesus statue in southern Lebanon. He and another soldier were sent to jail by their commanders.
Netanyahu calls Israel “an island of progress, an island of tolerance, an island of security,” and stresses Israel’s commitment to protecting the Druze in Syria.
“This is the only place, Israel, where the Christian community is flourishing and growing,” Netanyahu continues. “The only one in the Middle East. Everywhere else, they are persecuted, or they emigrate, or they are slaughtered. Only here do they find a place, a shared home for all of us.”
He says that the groundbreaking ceremony in the Galilee disproves the “lie” that Israel is persecuting Christians: “We came here today to shatter that lie, and we are shattering it through this very ceremony, through the very fact that we are not only protecting Christians — I am speaking specifically about the current lie — the Christians are protecting us! Everyone together.”
Qatar condemns yesterday’s drone attack by the Houthis against the city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, calling it “a shameful act of aggression and a blatant provocation of the sentiments of more than a billion Muslims around the world.”
In a statement, Qatar’s Foreign Ministry says that actions endangering Mecca constitute “a grave escalation.”
It also expresses full solidarity with Saudi Arabia’s measures to protect itself.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright claims that 18 million barrels of oil flowed through the Gulf yesterday.
“We’ve risen the flow of oil out of the Persian Gulf to record highs right now. About 18 million barrels flowed out yesterday, basically pre-conflict levels,” Wright says in an interview with Fox News.
The Jerusalem District Court issues a temporary order freezing the tender process for the government’s controversial West Bank land registration process, which critics have described as “de facto annexation” of the territory.
The court orders the Justice Ministry, Defense Ministry and other agencies to respond to the order by next Thursday.
“The renewal of the land registration process in the West Bank constitutes a clear act of annexation, and the tender for administering it was carried out without authority and unlawfully,” say Yesh Din, Bimkom, and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the organizations that petitioned the court against the process.
“The tender, and the process as a whole, must be voided, since its implementation and execution will lead to widespread harm to the human rights of Palestinians and a flagrant violation of international law.”
In February, the cabinet approved the renewal of the land registration process in the West Bank that was frozen in 1968 in order to enable the registration of broad swaths of land as state land that could then be used for Israeli development.
The Justice Ministry then issued a tender for private contractors to carry out the land registration process, and the tender was recently awarded.
The three Israeli civil rights organizations filed legal petitions against the renewal of the land registration process, arguing that the land registration process violates international law since Israel holds the West Bank under what is known as a belligerent occupation, in which actions permanently altering the status of the territory are prohibited.
The ownership of some two-thirds of all West Bank land has never been formally registered, and civil rights groups have expressed concern that since the declared goal of the land registration process is to advance settlement development, it would likely be extremely hard for Palestinians in Area C to effectively register their private property.
The IDF says a reservist who was filmed confronting Palestinians in a West Bank village has had his reserve duty terminated following the incident.
On Sunday, the reservist was filmed confronting several young Palestinians in the village of Beit Ummar, near Hebron. In footage circulated on social media, he can be seen standing next to a civilian vehicle, partially dressed in IDF fatigues and pointing a rifle at the Palestinians.
مستوطن يرهب مجموعة من الفتية عند مدخل بلدة بيت أمر شمال الخليل pic.twitter.com/20daUYhDlH
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) September 13, 2026
In a response to The Times of Israel, the IDF says that “troops were dispatched to the outskirts of the village of Beit Ummar in the Etzion Brigade area following footage and a report of a civilian confronting several Palestinians inside the village, following an earlier altercation between them.”
The military says that “the civilian is a reservist who entered the village without the proper authority or authorization and left upon the arrival of the troops. His reserve service was terminated and the incident was investigated.”
The reservist served in a Hagmar regional defense unit made up of West Bank settlers.
Israel’s Ambassador to Washington Yechiel Leiter met with his Lebanese counterpart Nada Hamadeh Moawad in Washington last night, an Israeli official tells The Times of Israel.
It was a “positive meeting,” says the official. “They agreed to meet again in October to continue negotiations.”
The meeting at the State Department was a more limited affair than the recent rounds of US-mediated talks. The October round of expanded talks is expected to take place in Rome, after talks that had been scheduled for this week were pushed off, citing scheduling conflicts.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, ahead of a trip to France, said today that he wants a security agreement with Israel once it withdraws from southern Lebanon “primarily to end the state of hostility and the deployment of the army on the border. This could be a prelude to a later peace agreement, but we cannot jump directly to a peace agreement.”
Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi rejects any plans for Palestinian displacement, during a visit by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to Cairo.
Sissi “reiterated Egypt’s firm stance against the displacement of the Palestinian people or any attempt to annihilate the Palestinian cause.”
Abbas praises Egypt’s “steadfast positions,” Palestinian news agency WAFA reports.
Earlier today, Defense Minister Israel Katz said the IDF is preparing “to finish the job” in Gaza “so that we can also implement the migration plan,” referring to a purported voluntary relocation plan once touted by US President Donald Trump but since largely abandoned.
Egypt, which shares a land border with Gaza, has long rejected any such plan and refuses to accept Gazan refugees.
British police say that they have charged a 21-year-old man with racially and religiously aggravated criminal damage against Muslim organizations and venues in London.
Illia Bilyk was charged with five offenses relating to offensive graffiti being sprayed on five buildings in January 2025, say London’s Metropolitan Police. He is due to appear in court tomorrow.
Sweden says it had expelled an Iranian embassy employee and summoned the country’s ambassador, accusing Tehran of making threats against Jewish and Israeli interests in Sweden.
“We know that Iran, over a long period of time, has conducted activities that threaten security in and against Sweden, targeting both individuals who oppose the Iranian regime and various Jewish and Israeli interests in our country. This has, among other things, been done by making use of criminal networks,” Justice Minister Gunnar Strommer says in a statement to AFP.
Saudi Arabia condemns the targeting of Mecca as a “cowardly terrorist attack” after Yemen’s Houthis denied launching a drone at the holy city.
The Gulf kingdom “reaffirms its legitimate right to take all necessary measures to defend the security of the two holy mosques, the pilgrims, and the entire Saudi territory, its citizens, and its residents,” the foreign ministry says in a statement.
Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree says the group has attacked an airbase in Khamis Mushait as well as Aramco facilities in Yanbu.
Saudi Arabia has not confirmed either of the attacks.
A British MP for Labour has called for “military action” against Israel in Parliament.
During a discussion yesterday on Gaza, MP Tahir Ali interrupted comments by Liberal Democrat MP Richard Foord on the need to disarm Hamas, saying: “On the issue of disarmament, should we not also be calling for Israel’s disarmament as well, given the atrocities that have been committed?”
Ali adds: “Previous governments have intervened in the Middle East to take action to [guard against] human rights abuses and protect international trade routes. Isn’t it about time that military action is taken against Israel also?”
Ali has served as an MP for Birmingham Hall Green and Moseley since 2019.
Previous Labour and Conservative governments have consistently justified military intervention across the Middle East, including in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen, on the grounds of preventing human rights abuses and protecting vital trade routes.
Is it not time, therefore, that… pic.twitter.com/6DlPTle8Hs
— Tahir Ali MP (@TahirAliMP) September 15, 2026
Responding to Ali, Foord rejected the attempt to create an equivalence between Israel and the Hamas terror group.
Yashar leader Gadi Eisenkot denies a Channel 12 report claiming he promised Bedouin local authority heads that he would bring Mansour Abbas’s Islamist Ra’am party into a government led by him following the October 27 election.
The outlet cited local leaders who’d been at the event. Tuba-Zangariyye council head Mueid al-Heib, who attended the meeting, told Radio Nas that Eisenkot said he would not govern with Bezalel Smotrich or Itamar Ben Gvir, but that contacts were underway with Ra’am and he would work to bring the party into his government.
Eisenkot and Yashar vehemently deny the claims, calling them “a complete lie” and insisting the remarks “were never made, not even by implication.”
פרסום ראשון: גדי איזנקוט הבטיח במהלך פגישה שקיים אמש עם פורום ראשי הרשויות הבדואיות בצפון לצרף את רע״מ לממשלה הבאה בראשותו. שני ראשי רשויות שהשתתפו בפגישה אישרו את הדברים pic.twitter.com/I9VUW8MxMM
— מוחמד מג'אדלה محمد مجادلة (@mmagadli) September 16, 2026
Yashar publishes recordings of yesterday’s meeting with the local authority heads, saying the composition of a future government was never discussed.
The party reiterates its position that potential coalition partners must meet “the three fundamental principles that are well known to the public,” including recognition of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, acceptance of the values of the Declaration of Independence, and universal military or civil national service, as well as recognition of Hamas as a terrorist organization.
“We have nothing to hide,” Eisenkot writes on X, tagging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as he posts a video of the meeting. “Take an example. This is how it’s done. What about the full [war] protocols? We’re waiting.”
The jab alludes to demands for the release of records relating to Netanyahu’s conduct surrounding October 7, as well as his opposition to the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the failures surrounding the attack.
The dispute comes as the presumed anti-Netanyahu bloc, led by Yashar’s Eisenkot, continues to poll several seats short of a majority, fueling speculation that Ra’am could provide the additional support needed to form a government. The prospect has become a central line of attack by Netanyahu and his right-wing allies against Eisenkot, as they campaign against the inclusion of Arab parties in the next government.
Former Yisrael Beytenu MK Esterina Tartman, who served in the Knesset from 2006 to 2009 and briefly headed the party’s parliamentary faction, has died at the age of 68.
“I received with great sorrow the news of the untimely passing of former MK Esterina Tartman,” says Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman.
“Esterina devoted many years to public service and to serving the State of Israel, acting with dedication and determination,” he says. “My sincere condolences to her family and all her loved ones at this difficult time. May her memory be a blessing.”
קיבלתי בצער רב את הבשורה על פטירתה בטרם עת של ח״כ לשעבר אסתרינה טרטמן ז״ל.
אסתרינה הקדישה שנים רבות לעשייה ציבורית ולשירות מדינת ישראל, ופעלה במסירות ובנחישות.
תנחומיי הכנים למשפחתה ולכל אוהביה בשעה קשה זו.
יהי זכרה ברוך. pic.twitter.com/kN0ZN8IzT4
— אביגדור ליברמן (@AvigdorLiberman) September 16, 2026
Born in Jerusalem in 1957, Tartman served in the IDF and was discharged with the rank of major before entering politics. She was elected to the Knesset in 2006 on the Yisrael Beytenu slate and served as the party’s faction chair.
In 2007, she was tapped to become tourism minister but withdrew her candidacy after discrepancies emerged regarding academic qualifications listed on her resume.
The cause of her death is not immediately reported. She is survived by four children.
Yisrael Beytenu says party chief Avigdor Lieberman met today with B’Yachad party head Naftali Bennett.
“The two discussed the steps needed to achieve victory in the election and addressed various issues on the agenda,” the statement says.
US officials met representatives of Yemen’s Houthis in Oman over the weekend, five sources familiar with the matter say, days after the Iran-backed militia seized a strategic stretch of the Red Sea coast in a sweeping offensive that routed Saudi-backed forces.
The meeting, which has not been made public, was held at the US Embassy in Muscat, three of the sources say on the condition of anonymity. Two sources say that Oman’s government, a longtime regional mediator, helped organize the meeting.
The Trump administration designated the Houthis a “foreign terrorist organization” in March 2025, criminalizing support for the group. But Washington has negotiated with them since, reaching a ceasefire in May last year after bombing the group for two months to halt a campaign of attacks on Red Sea shipping.
US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the Houthis had phoned his administration asking the United States to keep out of the Yemen war. Vice President JD Vance said on Monday the United States was in direct contact with the group, without giving details.
In the meeting, which one source says took place on Sunday, the Houthis told US officials that they have no intention of attacking American vessels and that they are committed to the 2025 ceasefire with the US, two sources say.
One of the sources, a Yemeni, says the militia group also said they would not attack Israeli ships or any commercial vessels, except those belonging to Saudi Arabia.
According to two of the sources, the US side was represented by embassy personnel.
One of those sources says the Houthi delegation included a senior official based in Muscat who is under US sanctions, Mohammad Abdulsalam. Another source confirms Abdulsalam’s presence along with that of another senior Houthi official, Abdelmalik al-Ajiri.
Asked whether the US has met with the Houthis in Oman, a State Department spokesperson does not confirm the meeting, but says safeguarding freedom of navigation in the Red Sea and preventing the export of terrorism from the Middle East are core US interests.
Oman’s embassy in the US and senior Houthi official Abdulsalam do not respond to a request for comment.
The Houthis last week seized effective control of Yemen’s entire Red Sea coastline, including the historic port of Mokha, and Perim Island in the Bab el-Mandeb, or “Gate of Tears” strait, at the sea’s mouth.
Lebanese President Joseph Aoun tells AFP in an interview he wants a security agreement with Israel once it withdraws its troops as a possible prelude to peace, and is determined to disarm Hezbollah without a confrontation.
Speaking ahead of his departure to France, President Joseph Aoun says Lebanon wants a new force, European or otherwise, to prevent a security vacuum after UN peacekeepers leave south Lebanon when their mandate expires at the end of the year.
He calls on the United States, European Union and Arab countries to support Lebanon’s military as it deploys across the country.
Lebanon under Aoun has committed to disarming Iran-backed Hezbollah, which dragged the country into the wider Middle East war by attacking Israel earlier this year. Hezbollah has refused to disarm, and Israeli officials are doubtful that Beirut will follow through on its pledges.
Aoun says he wants a security agreement with Israel “primarily to end the state of hostility and the deployment of the army on the border. This could be a prelude to a later peace agreement, but we cannot jump directly to a peace agreement.”
“We have no choice but negotiations, because the alternative is war, which would be very costly for us,” he adds.
In Paris, Aoun will attend a meeting hosted by President Emmanuel Macron and attended by King Abdullah II of Jordan to build international support for Lebanese troops as they deploy across the country.
Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and other activists have called out British superstar Ed Sheeran after rapper Macklemore was dropped from Sheeran’s tour for making pro-Palestinian comments while performing.
Sheeran has denied being behind the decision to remove Macklemore, saying his tour’s promoter was responsible, but several supporting acts have announced they are quitting the tour.
“Ed, there is only one victim here: the Palestinian people,” Thunberg, together with activist group Humanti Project, says in post to Instagram.
According to a post by Sheeran, where he stressed the decision was the promoters’, venues on the tour “communicated that they would pull the shows if he was still supporting.”
Finneas — a performer also famous for work with his superstar sister Billie Eilish — Irish acts Aaron Rowe and Beoga, and Lukas Graham of Denmark have all posted they were quitting Sheeran’s “Loop Tour.”
“This is a clear and undeniable sign that the global consciousness has shifted. The normalization of an apartheid state, and the attempts to sanitize or justify its actions, will no longer be tolerated,” the post shared by Thunberg says.
While opening for Sheeran earlier this month at New Jersey’s MetLife Stadium, Macklemore shouted “Free Palestine!” and told Palestinians they were “not forgotten.”
Thirteen Israeli municipalities have said they will not allow the use of live chickens in the traditional kapparot ritual before Yom Kippur, after an animal rights group called on municipal leaders to restrict the practice.
According to Let the Animals Live, the municipalities of Tel Mond, Yeruham, Mevaseret Zion and Yavne joined the initiative this year, and Kiryat Bialik and Rishon Lezion renewed commitments made last year.
They join Kfar Saba, Ra’anana, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Beersheba, Ashkelon, Ramle and Petah Tikva, which have prohibited the practice in their jurisdictions for years.
Kapparot is a pre-Yom Kippur tradition in which a person symbolically transfers their sins to a chicken, which is then slaughtered and given to the poor. The tradition also allows for money to be used instead and then donated to charity, an alternative many see as more humane and hygienic.
Conducting the kapparot service in public requires receiving a permit from the local veterinary department, whether or not slaughter takes place on site. Local authorities have the right to prohibit the use of live chickens for the ritual, the organization notes.
Kapparot should instead be performed by donating money to charity, Let the Animals Live suggests. The Environmental Protection Ministry has also made similar requests in the past.
“Yom Kippur embodies introspection, compassion and mercy,” says Yael Arkin, the organization’s CEO. “There is no justification for marking it through a practice involving fear and severe suffering to animals.”
Palestinian media outlets report that settlers set fire overnight to a structure used for agricultural purposes in the village of Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills, in the southern West Bank.
???? مستوطنون يشعلون النيران في غرفة زراعية بقرية توانة في مسافر يطا جنوب الخليل. pic.twitter.com/PqMxx1hlaW
— وكالة شهاب للأنباء (@ShehabAgency) September 16, 2026
There are no reports of injuries.
مستوطنون يشعلون النيران في غرفة زراعية بقرية توانة في مسافر يطا جنوب الخليل. pic.twitter.com/OSufPMqboC
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) September 16, 2026
Former Kosovo president Hashim Thaci has been found guilty of war crimes including murder, torture and illegal detention by the Kosovo war crimes tribunal in The Hague.
Thaci, 58, is sentenced to 25 years in prison for crimes committed as top commander of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) during the territory’s violent break from Serbia in the 1990s.
The tribunal says he is guilty of the murder of 96 political opponents and perceived collaborators with Serbian security forces by Kosovo Liberation Army forces during the conflict.
He is also convicted for the arbitrary illegal detention of 385 people, torture of 303 people and cruel treatment of around 50.
The court says Thaci “actively participated in and encouraged crimes.”
Thaci, who stood in silence as the judge read out the conviction and the sentence, has denied all charges.
The ruling was closely watched in Kosovo and Serbia, where the legacy of the 1998-99 conflict and Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence remain a source of tension between ethnic Kosovo Albanians and Serbs. Thaci remains a revered figure for many Kosovo Albanians, while the tribunal itself is deeply unpopular in Kosovo.
Hamas-led authorities in Gaza now say at least 12 people including children have died and more than 100 are missing after a Gaza apartment building collapsed from damage sustained in previous Israeli strikes.
The six-story building, which had four apartments per floor, crumbled overnight onto nearby homes and tents in the Tal al-Hawa area of Gaza City, according to the Hamas-run civil defense agency.
Agency spokesman Mahmoud Basal tells AFP the building had sustained structural damage from Israeli strikes. The building was hit multiple times in 2024 and March 2025, leading to warnings for Gazans not to go back, he adds.
“At least 12 martyrs, including five children, have been recovered so far,” Basal says.
“They have no other choice. With neither tents nor homes available, they are living in cracked, damaged buildings despite the risk of collapse,” Basal says.
The vast majority of buildings in Gaza were damaged or destroyed in Israeli strikes during the war with the terror group, according to the United Nations.
The High Court of Justice rejects a petition by the Shas party seeking to overturn a decision by Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara to block a state-funded memorial for the late Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, which had been scheduled for October 6.
Although the government passed legislation providing for state-funded events to commemorate the Shas spiritual leader close to the day of his passing, the attorney general determined earlier this year that because that date falls within three weeks of the upcoming election, and due to the expected participation of Shas political leaders, the event would become a party political event funded by the taxpayer.
The attorney general suggested several alternative arrangements, including holding the memorial without Shas politicians present, but these were rejected, leading the Religious Services Ministry to cancel the event earlier this month.
At the end of a short hearing today, High Court judges say that the petition against the attorney general’s decision is moot since the event can no longer be arranged in time, and the court will therefore not rule on a theoretical issue.
Shas Chairman Aryeh Deri says in response: “Today, the High Court judges, with callousness and a disconnect from the feelings of large numbers of Jews, are lending a hand to preventing the state commemoration event for [Rabbi Yosef’s] legacy.
“Neither the High Court nor the attorney general will succeed in stopping the legacy of Maran [Rabbi Yosef]. It lives in the hearts of millions and will continue to illuminate generations.”
Iranian authorities committed crimes against humanity in the crackdown on 2022 protests that left hundreds dead, Amnesty International says, adding that Tehran’s suppression of new demonstrations early this year bore the “same hallmarks” but on an even wider scale.
The crackdown in 2022 amounted to “crimes against humanity” including murder, torture, rape and enforced disappearance, Amnesty says in a report marking four years since those protests, warning that the authorities’ actions against rallies earlier this year were “on an even deadlier and more staggering scale.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pitches setting up a “European Security Council” with countries including Britain and Ukraine, as the continent grapples with the threat from Russia.
“For a long time, we have discussed a leaders’ format focused on the security of our continent, with partners like Canada, Norway, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and others involved,” von der Leyen says in her annual state of the union address.
“This is even more urgent now, given the nature and scale of the risks at play. This is why we will set out our ideas to make a European Security Council a reality.”
Europe is grappling with what it calls a campaign of “hybrid attacks” by Moscow aimed at undermining support for Ukraine.
“We should be under no illusions about what is happening here: hybrid threats facing Europe are less and less hybrid and less and less threats,” von der Leyen says.
“Europe needs its own counter-hybrid playbook. We urgently need a consensus on how to respond to certain incidents. Those which fall below armed aggression but clearly threaten our national security.”
The European Commission president says she wants to establish an “emergency security protocol” that would allow any EU member state to convene urgent talks in case of crisis.
While the EU is struggling to counter Russian activities, von der Leyen pledges that the bloc will ramp up support for Kyiv as Russia steps up bombardments ahead of the winter.
Air Canada is bringing forward the resumption of nonstop flights between Tel Aviv and Toronto to November 30, ahead of its originally scheduled return date of January 17, 2027.
The Canadian airline says the decision follows a “thorough review of the security environment.” Flights between Tel Aviv and Toronto will operate four times a week on Boeing 787-9 and Boeing 787-8 aircraft.
“Air Canada’s resumption of service to Tel Aviv follows a detailed assessment of operational, safety, and security considerations in the region,” the airline says in a statement.
After Israel’s airspace was closed on February 28, following the outbreak of war with Iran, Air Canada repeatedly extended the suspension of all flights to and from Tel Aviv.
After declaring he would seek to revoke the citizenship of the filmmakers behind the controversial film “NAZA,” Culture Minister Miki Zohar has now appealed to Shin Bet chief David Zini to investigate how various materials reached Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor.
The film includes testimonies from 24 purported anonymous Israeli intelligence soldiers who allege “mass killing on an industrial scale” in Gaza, claiming Israel used AI-assisted systems to sanction mass civilian deaths as collateral damage for hitting military targets. Israel rejects the claims, and says it has gone to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties.
In a letter to Zini, Zohar asks that the agency investigate whether there was any illegal use of sensitive or secret information.
“When anonymous sources are used to disseminate serious and false allegations against the State of Israel and the IDF during wartime, it is imperative to establish who is behind them,” Zohar says. “I asked the Shin Bet chief to investigate where the material came from, who provided it, and whether enemy elements were involved.”
Fourteen Russian spy satellites passed over a US military base in Saudi Arabia days before it suffered a major Iranian strike during this year’s war, CNN reports.
According to the network, citing US officials and intelligence sources, the wealth of data gathered by Russia was likely sent to the Iranians and enabled them to carry out the high-precision strike on American forces.
The March 27 attack, involving at least one missile and several drones, wounded 12 US service members and destroyed and damaged several planes.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen calls for the 27-nation bloc to fight back against “the ultranationalists or the anti-Europeans” who want to undermine it.
The EU is dealing with “an openly hostile world,” she says. “A territorial war of aggression is raging on our continent; others have erupted nearby. A fight for industrial capacities is shaping global competition. And a battle of narratives is seeking to weaken confidence in Europe,” she says.
“Do we let our democracies be undermined by the proxies and puppets of authoritarians?” von der Leyen says in a keynote speech. “They despise our values, and they want to shatter our European unity. So let’s not only fight back against that, let’s fight together for our European idea.”
Defense Minister Israel Katz says it is only a matter of time before the country resumes full-scale war in Gaza and moves to encourage the emigration of its two million Palestinians.
Katz makes the comments while responding to criticism from another right-wing contender, Ofer Winter of the People of Israel party, ahead of the October 27 election.
Katz says 70 percent of Gaza has already been emptied of its population by the war there. He says that an October 2025 ceasefire announced by US President Donald Trump had “supreme value for all Israelis” by leading to the return of remaining hostages and ensuring “a commitment by the United States” to disarming Hamas.
“We all understand that this is not going to happen — and the IDF is prepared, once given the directive to eliminate Hamas, to finish the job so that we can also implement the migration plan,” Katz says.
He said earlier this month that Israel was ready to remove Palestinians from Gaza by sea and land but was waiting for the United States, which he said was discussing where the two million people would go. Katz described the migration plan as voluntary, saying most Palestinians wanted to leave. The basis of that claim was unclear.
US Ambassador Mike Huckabee has denied any plan to “displace people out of Gaza against their will.”
Nearly all of Gaza’s population has been internally displaced, and most of the territory lies in rubble after the war.
A local NBC news helicopter crashed in a Los Angeles neighborhood on Tuesday and burst into flames, killing at least three people while reporters were covering the nearby crash of an SUV and a city bus, officials and the station say.
Colleen Williams, an NBC4 Los Angeles anchor, confirmed during live broadcasts that the station’s chopper went down just before 7 p.m. and two people on the helicopter were killed.
“We are going to take a couple of minutes to think about that, process it,” she said, her voice shaking with emotion. Moments later, their coverage abruptly cut off.
Fire officials, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and other politicians spoke during a news conference Tuesday night but gave no details on who perished in the crash. After the news conference, the mayor and other officials embraced a crying NBC reporter who was also hugged by fellow journalists.
The helicopter crashed near a large storage facility in the neighborhood of Chatsworth in the San Fernando Valley, as news crews were covering a bus crash that left at least two people dead and six others injured, according to the Los Angeles Fire Department.
At least one person killed in the helicopter crash was outside in the parking lot next to the commercial building, said Capt. Branden Silverman, a spokesperson for the Los Angeles Fire Department.
Two people were transported to a hospital, said Rico A. Gross, a fire department battalion chief. Their conditions were not immediately released.
Footage published by Palestinian media shows commandos of the Israeli Navy’s Shayetet 13 unit rappelling from a helicopter in the southern West Bank overnight.
The footage was taken in the town of Yatta, near Hebron.
The IDF has not yet commented on the video or the operation the naval commandos were carrying out.
لحظة إنزال جنود الاحتلال من طائرة مروحية خلال اقتحام مدينة يطا جنوب الخليل. pic.twitter.com/f7NUuFBzf8
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) September 15, 2026
Yemen’s Houthis say they shot down a Saudi fighter jet, claiming a locally made munition was used to target the warplane.
“The Yemeni Armed Forces, with Allah’s aid and grace, succeeded in shooting down a Saudi F15 fighter jet while it was carrying out hostile operations in support of its military mobilizations in the airspace of Marib province, using a locally made air-to-air missile,” a spokesman for the Houthis says on social media, while accusing Saudi Arabia of launching 450 strikes.
US Vice President JD Vance says Washington can’t let its “Middle Eastern foreign policy be subservient to the State of Israel.”
Speaking to a a conference organized by the All-In Podcast, Vance says of US-Israel ties: “Obviously Israel has been an important partner when it comes to military technology, when it comes to intelligence sharing, but also sometimes the United States doesn’t… agree with Israel.
“I think that more than frankly any president in the last 40 years, he has shown a willingness to actually part ways with Bibi Netanyahu when he feels like the interests of the American people are different from the interests of the government of Israel,” Vance says, using Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s nickname.
“Donald Trump is the one president of the last 40 years who’s been willing to say ‘You know what, yeah Bibi’s a good partner, but also Bibi and I have a different opinion on this,’ or ‘Bibi’s wrong about this,’ or maybe ‘Bibi’s right about this from the perspective of Israel, but the American people need us to go in a different direction.'”
Vance argues that “rooting this relationship, like all relationships, in America’s interest is the way to actually have a rational conversation here.”
The vice president says this is true for NATO as well.
“[We have] a lot of important relationships, a lot of important partnerships in NATO, but that doesn’t mean we’re gonna completely make our European foreign policy subservient to NATO, in the same way that we cannot let our Middle Eastern foreign policy be subservient to the State of Israel.
“We’re gonna work with people when we work with them, we’re gonna disagree when we disagree. And we’re gonna pursue America’s interests. That’s the only way to have a rational foreign policy.”
JD Vance just said “we cannot let our Middle Eastern foreign policy be subservient to the state of Israel.”
Our U.S. foreign policy has never been subservient to Israel’s foreign policy. He knows that. Why would he need to say that unless he’s trying to politically gain some… pic.twitter.com/JT5jJClCU0
— Heather Johnston (@HeatherJ_Israel) September 16, 2026
Gaza’s Hamas-run Civil Defense rescue service says eight people were killed when a six-story building collapsed in Gaza City overnight.
According to the statement, dozens more people are missing at the site.
It is unclear what caused the building to collapse, though it may have been struck previously, potentially weakening its structural integrity. There have been previous cases during the Israel-Hamas war of buildings collapsing after sustaining damage in strikes.
The Al-Saada building in western Gaza has collapsed.
Crying for help can be heard from beneath the building. pic.twitter.com/Ct0VHYjuci— dr. mohammed hamad – Gaza (@Medo198518) September 15, 2026
The United States embassy issues an advisory to “reconsider travel” to Saudi Arabia after Riyadh issued alerts in Mecca and other areas amid Houthi attacks.
The advisory warns of the “risk of Iranian drone and missle targeting of American interests, armed conflict, terrorism, exit bans and local laws regarding social media activity,” adding “Do Not Travel to the Yemen border due to threat of terrorism.”
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation condemns the Houthis’ “heinous” attack on Islam’s holy city Mecca, which the rebel group has denied.
“The General Secretariat of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation condemns the heinous attacks carried out by the Houthi group against the city of Makkah and the Madinah region, as well as its ongoing aggression against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia,” the OIC says in a statement posted on X.
A Houthi official rejects the Saudi-led coalition’s report that it had shot down a drone from the rebels heading towards Mecca, the holiest city in Islam.
“The claims about targeting Mecca are a worn-out lie that has been used before and no longer fools anyone,” Hazem al-Assad from the Houthis’ politburo writes on X.
Saudi Arabia air defenses intercepted and destroyed a drone launched by Yemen’s Houthis, before it entered prohibited airspace over the holy city of Mecca, the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen says.
Coalition spokesperson Turki al-Malki says in a statement that it was the second Houthi attempt to target Mecca, Islam’s holiest city and the focal point of the annual hajj pilgrimage, following what the coalition said was a ballistic missile launch in July 2017.
Several explosions have been heard on Iran’s Qeshm island, Iranian official IRNA news agency reportes, citing local sources as saying, adding the sounds appear to have come from the direction of the sea.
An assailant convicted of an antisemitic hate crime for attacking an Israeli in New York City after the October 2023 invasion of Israel is sentenced to 90 days in jail.
Yehia Amin in March pleaded guilty to assault as a hate crime in the third degree in Manhattan’s New York Supreme Criminal Court.
The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office says Amin was sentenced Tuesday to 90 days in jail followed by five years of probation, according to a plea agreement.
On October 18, 2023, shortly after the Hamas invasion of Israel, Amin stalked and punched a 23-year-old Jewish Israeli near Times Square, the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office said in an indictment after the incident.
The man was with four friends, all of whom were wearing kippahs, when they walked by Amin, who recognized them as Jewish and pursued them.
Amin, who was 28 at the time of the attack, taunted the group, telling them, “Hamas should kill more of you,” “May Allah kill all the Jews,” and “All Jews should die,” according to the District Attorney’s Office.
While Amin pursued the Israelis, he blasted music from a speaker that he later described as “Hamas music.”
The group tried to report Amin to a security guard, then headed to a train station to leave Times Square, but Amin continued to follow them, saying, “All Jews are crybabies,” and “I want to kill you for Gaza.”
After around 10 minutes of harassment, Amin ran up behind the victim and punched him in the back of the head, causing substantial pain and minor injuries.
Amin fled the scene and the Israeli tourist and his friends followed him. A police officer joined the pursuit, caught Amin and arrested him.
While under arrest, Amin continued to shout antisemitic statements, including, “God kill all the Jewish people,” the District Attorney’s Office said.
The attack was one of 69 antisemitic incidents reported to police in October 2023, more than double the total of the preceding two months combined.
Jews are targeted in hate crimes far more than any other group in New York City.
Ed Sheeran’s tour of North and South America is plunged into chaos as four of his supporting acts abruptly quit in solidarity with the rapper Macklemore, who was dropped for making pro-Palestinian comments onstage.
Hours after Sheeran posted on social media about Macklemore’s ouster and attributed the decision to the tour’s promoters, Irish acts Aaron Rowe and Beoga, the Danish band Lukas Graham, and Finneas post on Instagram that they are leaving the tour.
Rowe and Lukas Graham would have been replacements for Macklemore on Sheeran’s remaining US dates, while Beoga had been performing several songs — including some the Irish folk band co-wrote — with Sheeran around the middle of each set. Finneas, who is Billie Eilish’s brother and musical collaborator, was due to tour with Sheeran in South America later this year.
“Artists must not be silenced when they speak up for the oppressed,” Finneas says on Instagram. “I have decided to withdraw from my upcoming tour dates with Ed Sheeran. I stand with Palestine and its people.”
Rowe and Beoga each cite their country’s history in their statements explaining their decision. “We are Irish people who understand colonialism. As founding members of the Irish Artists for Palestine movement, we are committed activists for justice and will continue to be,” Beoga says.
Rowe calls Sheeran a friend and says the British singer-songwriter changed his life. “But as Irish people we know all too well about genocide, forced famine and violent occupation,” he says, adding that he can’t “stand by and allow billionaires to use their position of power to silence the rightful voices of those who speak up.”
Meanwhile, Lukas Graham, the band that had hits with “Mama Said” and “7 Years,” expresses gratitude to Sheeran and calls it “a difficult decision.”
“Money doesn’t give you the right to own the conversation. Nobody’s bank balance should decide who gets to speak or which suffering we’re allowed to acknowledge,” the band posts, seemingly referring to billionaire Robert Kraft’s role in Macklemore’s removal from the tour.
The Jewish National Fund has ordered the immediate dismantling of a Jewish outpost that West Bank settlers recently set up in the jurisdiction of Majd al-Krum, an Arab town in the Galilee, according to sources from the Zionist land-holding body who are cited in Hebrew media.
The JNF had leased the land for livestock-grazing only, but the settlers — reportedly from the southern West Bank settlement of Tekoa — pitched a large tent, hooked it up to an electric source and brought furniture and appliances, with no farm animals in sight.
The sources cited by Hebrew media say the JNF, which held an urgent meeting Tuesday to discuss the matter, has offered to set up a smaller, alternate encampment outside the jurisdiction of Majd al-Krum on the condition that the settlers bring in livestock by Wednesday.
Authorities in Majd al-Krum said the encampment would prevent landowners in the area from reaching their fields, and attributed the establishment of the outpost to the government’s stated policy to settle more Jews in the area.
The local authorities have vowed to hold protests every day until the outpost is gone. Hundreds of locals and left-wing activists demonstrated near the outpost on Tuesday.
During the protest, police detained Alon-Lee Green, co-leader of the binational socialist group Standing Together, according to video footage. The Young Communist League of Israel says a member of its central committee, Sujood Badran, was also detained.
♦️ אלון לי גרין, פעיל מחאה מוכר ממפלגת מקום לכולנו, נעצר בחשד לתקיפת שוטרים בעצרת הזדהות עם תושבי מג'ד אל-כרום בגליל. זאת על רקע הסערה להקמת מאחז לא חוקי על אדמתם. pic.twitter.com/iNRAsLiDkW
— Asslan Khalil (@KhalilAsslan) September 15, 2026
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