Settlers are filmed attempting to raid a Bedouin hamlet on the outskirts of the central West Bank village of Taybeh.
The hamlet has been targeted by settlers in nearby illegal outposts on a daily basis.
The IDF has issued a closed military zone order that is supposed to bar the settlers from reaching the area, but activists say it is not enforced against them, allowing settlers to continue roaming through the village and harassing local residents.
Footage shows the settlers attempting to destroy the fence surrounding the hamlet.
No arrests have been reported.
مستوطنون يهاجمون مساكن "أبو فزاع" البدوية شرق قرية الطيبة شرقي رام الله وسط محاولات لاقتحامها وتصدي واسع من الفلسطينيين pic.twitter.com/Yf5jedmdbY
— العربية (@AlArabiya) August 12, 2026
Israel is sending an aid delegation to assist Colombia in recovery efforts after a deadly earthquake hit the country, says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office.
According to the Prime Minister’s Office, Colombia’s new President Abelardo De La Espriella requested assistance from Israel.
A powerful 7.4 magnitude earthquake struck western Colombia on Monday, killing at least 100 people and injuring hundreds more. Israel offered aid on the same day.
“Israel sends its condolences to the families of those killed in the disaster, and will offer a range of assistance to Colombia,” says the PMO.
In June, Israel sent an aid delegation to Venezuela, which provided professional assistance to the country’s emergency response and recovery efforts after two earthquakes hit the country.
Last week, the pro-Israel lawyer De la Espriella was inaugurated as president, and he has pledged to move the Colombian embassy to Jerusalem and restore once-vibrant ties, which soured during the Gaza war under former president Gustavo Petro. The inauguration was attended by Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, amid a push for closer relations with Latin America.
Colombia also recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights on Monday.
US airstrikes targeting Iranian-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen last year killed more than 150 civilians, according to a Pentagon review of the attacks, which comes as concerns rise over civilian casualties during military campaigns under the Trump administration.
The unclassified assessment, obtained by The Associated Press, was sent to Congress as part of an annual report on civilian casualties and reported earlier by NBC News. A Pentagon official, who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, says the department will submit the report in the coming months but had nothing more to announce.
The Pentagon review focused on three airstrikes in April 2025 that were launched during the US campaign against the Houthis. The militants were attacking commercial ships in the Red Sea, a crucial global trade route that leads to the Suez Canal and into the Mediterranean, as well as Israel.
Those strikes targeted hostile forces in or near Yemen’s rebel-held capital city of Sanaa as well as the Ras Isa port, the report said. A total of 153 civilians were killed and 243 were injured.
The strike on the port was the most deadly, killing 80 people and injuring 171 others. It sent massive fireballs billowing skyward and turned tanker trucks into burning wrecks. The Houthis aired graphic footage of the aftermath on their al-Masirah satellite news channel, showing corpses strewn about the port.
A poll aired this evening on Channel 13 news predicts that the “change” bloc of parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could reach 60 Knesset seats if they join with the right-wing Zionist Home party led by Yoaz Hendel and Chili Tropper.
The survey of 1,240 participants — with a margin of error of ±3.9% — finds that Gadi Eisenkot’s Yashar party would be the largest with 23 seats, followed by Likud with 21, Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad with 12, The Democrats with 11 and Yisrael Beytenu with 10.
The poll shows Otzma Yehudit receiving eight seats, as would United Torah Judaism, Shas getting seven, Hadash-Ta’al with six seats, Religious Zionism and Ra’am both five and Zionist Home four seats.
The newly formed Gilad Erdan-Yuli Edelstein party would not cross the electoral threshold, and neither would Balad or Benny Gantz’s Blue and White party, the poll shows.
That would mean that a coalition of Yashar, B’Yachad, The Democrats, Yisrael Beytenu and Zionist Home would garner 60 seats, exactly half of the Knesset’s 120.
Hendel and Tropper have been sharply critical of Netanyahu, but have not explicitly ruled out sitting with him in a future coalition.
Dozens of people protest outside the Shin Bet headquarters in north Tel Aviv to demand the security agency help find Haymanut Kasau, who went missing at age 9 from an absorption center in Safed soon after her family came to Israel from Ethiopia.
The protest comes on the eve of the 900th day since the girl disappeared in February 2024. In February this year, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara approved the Shin Bet getting involved in the investigation, but the girl’s family says the agency has failed to act.
Protesters chant “justice for Haymanut,” “Haymanut is a hostage” and “where is the Shin Bet,” and hoist signs that read, “mom and dad are doing everything.”
אמה של היימנוט בהפגנה ליד מטה שבכ – חוסמים את הצומת pic.twitter.com/tZkKjHa3ME
— לירי בורק שביט (@lirishavit) August 12, 2026
In a letter to Shin Bet chief David Zini, Haymanut’s father Tesfai says it’s hard not to think the security agency has ignored the girl’s plight because of the color of her skin.
“I’m stopping myself, with all my strength, from thinking it has to do with color. But it’s very hard not to think things would look different if we looked different,” says the letter, which the father reads in the original Amharic, followed by a Hebrew translation read by a supporter.
“Prove to me I didn’t make a mistake by coming here. As a father to a father, prove to me that the Land of Israel is the safest place for Jews,” the letter says.
Haymanut’s mother, Benchi, asks whether skin color was why the Shin Bet didn’t rush to look for her daughter the way it helped in the search for 4-year-old Yuval Kogan, who went missing on a beach in Ashkelon last month and was found safe and sound a day later.
“When I heard Yuval’s story, I was jolted as a mother — I knew what the mother was going through. After 24 hours, when they found him, I calmed down,” says Benchi, according to a supporter’s Hebrew translation of her comments. “On the other hand… the speedy entrance of the Shin Bet stung. It made me wonder whether Haymanut isn’t deserving as well — if color is really playing a part here.”
After US President Donald Trump boasts that the US has “total control” over the Strait of Hormuz with its “Wall of Steel” blockade, Iran reiterates that the waterway will not be opened until its demands are met.
“Claims and repeated posts by US officials that the Strait of Hormuz is no longer blocked do not change the reality: the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked and will not be reopened until Iran’s conditions are accepted,” writes Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority on X.
Iran created the authority in May to control shipping through the key strait.
The US military is on track to pull all of its forces out of Iraq by the end of September, officials say, marking the end of a presence that started with the 2003 invasion against Saddam Hussein.
Washington and Baghdad agreed in 2024 to wind down the much smaller US-led operations against the Islamic State group.
US troops pulled out of bases in most areas of Iraq last year but maintained a presence in the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region. Bases there have regularly come under attack since the US and Israel launched the war on Iran on Feb. 28.
Iraqi Prime Minister Ali al-Zaidi met today with Adm. Brad Cooper, who leads the US Central Command. Al-Zaidi said in a statement afterward that he had affirmed Sept. 30 as the “fixed and final date for ending the military mission of the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS in Iraq and completing the departure of its forces.”
A US official confirms that the US expects to complete its pullout by Sept. 30, but declined to say how many troops remain in Iraq or where they would be redeployed.
“The United States, Iraq and coalition partners have achieved tremendous success in defeating ISIS and now the Iraqi security forces, including the Peshmerga and other Iraqi Kurdistan Region security forces, will lead the fight against terrorists in Iraq,” the official says.
Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam condemns Israel’s “systematic destruction” in the country’s south as a violation of international law, as Defense Minister Israel Katz said the IDF is “destroying all the houses” there.
Salam says Israeli “attacks, incursions, demolitions and the systematic destruction of homes,” infrastructure, government buildings and places of worship “represent a serious violation of the principles and rules of international law and international humanitarian law.”
Claiming that villages and towns “are entirely ‘military facilities’ does not stand up to any logic and cannot be used as an excuse for destroying them, displacing their inhabitants and preventing them from returning,” he says in a statement.
Katz visited southern Lebanon today, vowing to keep troops in a so-called “security zone” there and saying the IDF was “destroying the underground infrastructure” in the area and “destroying all the houses.”
Yashar chairman Gadi Eisenkot pushes back against criticism of his Haredi conscription plan, denying that he intends to grant exemptions to 30% of eligible ultra-Orthodox youth each year and insisting that he intends to “cancel the 1977 agreement that grants exemptions.”
Speaking with Channel 12, the former IDF chief of staff says that “there is a draft law for all citizens of Israel for military, national and civil service” and that he only plans on exempting 3% of exceptional prodigies in Torah, science, music and sports out of every draft cohort.
“I meet with Haredi Knesset members and I tell them that there is one issue on which there will be no compromise… even at the cost of going to another election,” he says.
This morning, former Shin Bet chief and Yashar party Knesset candidate Yoram Cohen sparked harsh criticism from the leaders of the anti-Netanyahu “Change Bloc” after he told the Kan public broadcaster that under the next government, potentially up to 30% of Haredim will be exempt from military conscription. In response, former prime minister Naftali Bennett countered that “there will be no compromises on recruitment” and that “whoever doesn’t serve the state won’t get a single shekel from the state their whole life.”
Speaking with Channel 12, Eisenkot also appears to call for an end to independent Arab and ultra-Orthodox school systems, stating that “we need to give three to four years to the entire education system in the State of Israel to transition to the state education system” and that “Haredi education will have to enter this framework.”
Eisenkot also dismisses concerns that he will end up forming a minority government, stating that if the anti-Netanyahu bloc only receives 52-58 out of the 61 mandates needed to form a coalition, “we will decide to deal only with issues that have very broad national consensus, and we will turn to the Zionist, statesmanlike parties. And on the day after Netanyahu, of course, including the Likud and other parties.”
Israel and Lebanon have agreed on Britain, Italy, Switzerland and Indonesia as potential contributors to a proposed mechanism that could see foreign troops deployed to Lebanon to verify Hezbollah’s disarmament, say people familiar with the matter.
The shortlist emerged from US-mediated talks in Rome last week, the latest round of negotiations between Israel and Lebanon on implementing a June agreement that ties Israel’s phased withdrawal from Lebanon to the disarmament of the Hezbollah terror group.
The countries could help define the mechanism’s scope, provide personnel to oversee its implementation or contribute troops to observe or take part in inspections verifying disarmament, three sources say.
A source with direct knowledge of the matter says discussions surrounding the shortlisted countries are in the early stages but says they are “cautiously optimistic” the effort will proceed.
Switzerland’s foreign ministry tells Reuters it is exploring ways to support “various stabilization processes,” but declines to provide details. A British foreign ministry spokesperson says Britain is ready to support efforts to de-escalate tensions and long-term security, particularly in southern Lebanon, without elaborating.
The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office has no immediate comment, but an Israeli official denies that any agreement has been reached regarding the countries that will make up the verification committee, and says that talks on the matter are still ongoing.
The Lebanese presidency and Indonesian foreign ministries do not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The next round of Israel-Lebanon talks is scheduled for early September.
Vienna police say that there is no indication of foul play in the case of the disappearance of an Israeli mother and daughter in Austria.
Markus Dittrich, a spokesman for the Vienna police, tells Austrian news outlets that there is “currently no indication of foul play.”
“The standard procedures for missing persons reports, such as an internal search, hospital inquiries, and the like, have been initiated in cooperation with the Israeli diplomatic mission in Austria,” Dittrich adds.
Mali and Liel Yahalomi have been missing in Vienna since Friday, and did not show up for their scheduled flight home to Israel on Monday night.
Family members tell Hebrew media outlets in interviews that they don’t believe there is any chance that the two women chose to disappear of their own accord, and that there were no ongoing family disputes.
Germany’s former ambassador to Israel, Steffen Seibert, levels unusually sharp criticism at the Israeli government and what he labels its “disastrous” settlement policy in the West Bank in an interview released today.
Israel’s policy in the West Bank amounts to “displacement through psychological and physical violence,” he is quoted as saying by news weekly Die Zeit.
Seibert — generally a staunch supporter of the Jewish state who ended his posting a month ago — stresses that “if the very existence of Israel is threatened by a murderous attack by Hamas, by the no less murderous plans of Hezbollah, or by Iran, then we must stand by this state.”
“But that does not apply to the settlers in the Jordan Valley,” he tells Zeit. “Under international law, these are illegal settlements driven by the ideology that this land belongs solely to us — that God gave it to us.”
“The concept of ‘reason of state’ does not extend to that; it does not support a sense of superiority over another population,” he adds.
It is equally necessary, he continues, to tell the Palestinians that the right of the Israeli people to live in their own state must be respected.
“We need to make it clear what we mean when we — rightly — say that we stand by Israel,” says Seibert. But “that does not mean our support extends to every action taken by the Israeli state — for instance, the occupation, which is now entering its 60th year.”
The military says it received information indicating Hamas was carrying out a military drill in the Gaza Strip on Tuesday night, leading it to improve intelligence-gathering and attack capabilities.
However, no terror operatives were actually identified at any stage, according to the IDF.
The army says that “there is no change to the rules of engagement, which require every IDF soldier to neutralize any immediate threat, wherever it may be.”
“There is also no change in the deployment of forces in the sector or in control of the Yellow Line,” the IDF adds.
The IDF’s statement comes after Channel 12 news reported last night that the military “identified unusual activity by terrorists” in the Strip, but “did not respond with an attack.”
Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman earlier today claimed that “IDF troops identified a training exercise by approximately 50 terrorists from the Nukhba Force who practiced raiding and occupying a Jewish settlement.”
He claimed that “IDF commanders in the field wanted to act immediately to target all terrorists, but the directive from the political echelon was: ‘You don’t touch anyone, don’t even fire a single shot.'”
Police tell Haredi anti-draft protesters at the Geha Interchange, at the exit to Bnei Brak from Route 4, that their demonstration is illegal and will be dispersed by force.
“Disruptors are blocking the road,” police say in a statement.
South of there, on Route 4, at the entrance to Givat Shmuel, dozens of Haredi men and boys surround a Haredi soldier, chanting “the neighborhood fuck-up,” as officers intervene to safely escort the soldier away from the crowd, according to reports and footage from the scene.
"הדפוק של השכונה": חייל חרדי עבר במקום ההפגנה ועורר סערה, שוטרים חילצו אותו. pic.twitter.com/zlvpR1a8S4
— זירת החדשות (@ZiratNews) August 12, 2026
Other footage from the protest on Route 4 shows Haredi men wearing Holocaust-like yellow stars with the word “Haredi” on it. One man can be seen holding a sign that reads, in English and Hebrew, “It was better to die as a Jew in the Holocaust than to spiritually die in IDF camps.”
טלאי צהוב ומוות בשואה: תיעוד מההפגנה בכביש 4. pic.twitter.com/mPXsO7Nf2R
— זירת החדשות (@ZiratNews) August 12, 2026
The extremist Jerusalem Faction had called on adherents to “make the earth shake” in Bnei Brak after a Haredi youth was arrested for draft-dodging yesterday, as he exited a police station where he was interrogated over an unrelated matter.
The Health Ministry announces that 13 patients have been diagnosed with West Nile fever this year. Of these cases, 12 have been discharged from the hospital, while one person has died from complications of the disease.
The Environmental Protection Ministry also says that mosquitoes infected with the West Nile fever virus have been captured in the Menashe Regional Council, Ramat Hasharon and Eilat.
Epidemiological investigations are continuing to locate the possible place of exposure to the infected mosquitoes.
The disease is transmitted to humans through the bite of mosquitoes that feed on infected birds, says Prof. Sigal Sadetzki, head of the Public Health Division at the Health Ministry.
It is usually a mild illness with no symptoms, but in exceptional cases, serious symptoms such as encephalitis or meningitis may also occur. The risk of severe illness is higher in people aged 60 and over and people with underlying diseases.
The IDF confirms carrying out an airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip a short while ago, saying it targeted a Hamas commander who was planning an attack on troops.
The strike in the Beit Lahiya area killed the head of a Hamas cell, according to the army. He is not named.
The operative was planning attacks on Israeli troops in northern Gaza, and he was targeted in an airstrike “to remove the threat to the forces,” the IDF says.
The IDF confirms carrying out an airstrike in the northern Gaza Strip a short while ago, saying it targeted a Hamas commander who was planning an attack on troops.
The strike in the Beit Lahiya area killed the head of a Hamas cell, according to the army. He is not named.
The… https://t.co/rlG2ttniw0 pic.twitter.com/fP26ndbEem
— Emanuel (Mannie) Fabian (@manniefabian) August 12, 2026
The High Court rejects efforts to disqualify state prosecutors from being involved in the investigation into the leak of a highly controversial video from the Sde Teiman military prison showing alleged abuse of a Palestinian detainee in 2024.
The 2-1 ruling says that State Attorney Amit Aisman can investigate the leak of the video, rejecting Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s attempts to keep the case out of the hands of state prosecutors amid his ongoing war with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara.
Levin has accused the attorney general of having a conflict of interest in the case after her office oversaw an internal probe that recommended not opening a criminal investigation into the leak’s source. That source ended up being revealed as ex-military advocate general Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who admitted to the leak.
Levin demanded that he be allowed to select someone from outside the state prosecution to oversee the investigation, something the justices allowed at the time, but they later rejected both of his nominees, since neither met the guidelines set out in their ruling.
Aisman is expected to order the filing of indictments against Tomer-Yerushalmi, as well as against the other senior military prosecutors suspected of leaking and covering up the leak of the video in question.
An IDF infantry battalion is being dispatched to the West Bank to bolster troops that are attempting to deal with provocations and attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians.
The military says that IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir held an assessment today with senior officers regarding an ongoing incident in the village of Qusra, where settlers have set up an outpost outside Palestinian homes, besieging them for days.
“The chief of staff instructed the continuation of efforts to strengthen order and operational control in the area, as well as to prevent the continuation of the serious incidents,” the IDF says in a statement.
The IDF says Zamir ordered a standing army infantry battalion, currently on a break between operational activity, to be deployed to the Qusra area “to strengthen operational control.” Additional forces will be on standby “for deployment as required.”
The military says it is working alongside the police and Shin Bet to restore order in the area and “bring the rioters to justice.”
Zamir also instructed that all troops in the West Bank “be given clear guidance regarding the rules of conduct and the use of force in incidents of this type.”
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses the Israeli government of seeking to “remove Palestine” from the world’s agenda.
“The aim of the Netanyahu government is to remove Palestine from the common agenda of humanity by profiting from chaos and new conflicts in the region,” Erdogan says at a joint news conference with his Palestinian Authority counterpart Mahmoud Abbas, adding: “They will not succeed.”
Israel Police chief Daniel Levy holds a special situation assessment amid efforts to locate an Israeli mother and daughter who have been missing in Austria for several days.
A statement from the Israel Police says that Levy “received a comprehensive overview of all investigative activities and intelligence efforts being carried out in Israel and abroad” to locate Mali and Liel Yahalomi, who have not been seen since Friday and missed their flight home to Israel.
Levy “directed that all necessary resources and means be allocated, in Israel and abroad, for the benefit of the investigation and location” of the missing women.
The European Broadcasting Union issues new rules ahead of next year’s competition seemingly aimed at ensuring Israel will not be able to host the 2028 contest even if it wins next year.
Generally, the EBU regulations stipulate that the country which wins the contest hosts the following year — but a number of exceptions have been made. Ukraine won in 2022, but the 2023 competition was hosted in the UK due to the ongoing war in the country. Countries have also given up their right to host in the past, including Israel when it won back-to-back in 1978 and 1979.
According to fresh rules posted on the Eurovision site today, the EBU “may designate another Participating Broadcaster to host the Event” if it determines that the winner is unable to do so.
“Where an armed conflict, a sensitive geopolitical situation, or any other situation materially affects the security, safety or stability of the immediate region of a Participating Broadcaster, that Participating Broadcaster shall not be eligible to host the next ESC should its entry win,” the new regulations state.
The EBU could, however, determine that the country is eligible to host if it is “satisfied that the safety, security, integrity, continuity and smooth operational delivery of the Event can reasonably be guaranteed.”
The regulations also note that the “’immediate region’ means the country of the Participating Broadcaster concerned and/or neighbouring territories where such a situation has a direct and material impact on its security environment.”
The new rules have been widely reported as aimed directly at the possibility of an Israeli win in future competitions, amid ongoing Israeli conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon and with Iran.
At this year’s contest in Vienna, Israel’s Noam Bettan came in second place, as did Yuval Raphael last year. The close calls alarmed many Eurovision viewers who did not deem Israel a safe or comfortable host for the song contest. Israel most recently hosted in 2019, after Netta Barzilai won a year earlier with “Toy.”
The 2027 competition is slated to be held in Bulgaria in May of next year. The final dates and host city are slated to be announced by the EBU tomorrow.
Palestinian media reports one dead and one injured in an Israeli strike targeting a vehicle in northern Gaza’s Beit Lahiya a short while ago.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF.
Israeli strikes in the Strip have become rare in recent weeks, after the military tightened its policy on “targeted eliminations.”
US President Donald Trump declares that the US will maintain its blockade of Iranian ports, in another sign that negotiations with Tehran are not progressing well.
“The USA has total control over over the Strait of Hormuz. I THINK WE WILL KEEP IT! Our Naval Blockade is being called, by everyone, ‘A WALL OF STEEL,’ and there is nothing Iran can do about it,” Trump writes on Truth Social.
“They have no navy, they have no air force, their remaining soldiers are unpaid, the IRGC is decimated and fleeing, and their leadership is uncertain, at best! They have no money – their country is shot,” he continues.
Trump has taken to insulting Iran’s leaders of late, after calling them much more reasonable than previous batches less than two months ago when he signed a memorandum of understanding with Tehran that was supposed to permanently end the war between the two countries and reopen the Strait of Hormuz.
“All they have is FAKE NEWS and 300% INFLATION, and getting worse! Iran is all talk and no action, the bully of the Middle East no longer. Praise be to Allah!” Trump says.
The US president is reportedly leaning toward declaring victory over Iran, without securing a deal regarding Iran’s nuclear program as he seeks to disengage from the issue.
But disengaging while maintaining the blockade is likely to keep global gas prices up, while potentially inviting additional Iranian strikes at its neighbors that have destabilized the region.
Twenty-six nations, including France, the UK and Canada, condemn the use of capital punishment by Iranian authorities, saying in a joint statement the Islamic Republic is executing protesters to “silence dissent.”
The countries, joined by the European Union’s top diplomat, “condemn in the strongest terms the ongoing executions of protesters and use of the death penalty” by Iran. “The use of capital punishment to silence dissent, intimidate communities, and punish individuals exercising their human rights can never be justified.”
WASHINGTON — The much-discussed $400 million earmarked in the Board of Peace’s disarmament plan will be used to pay severance for Hamas civil servants who don’t end up being hired by the new Palestinian technocratic government, an Arab diplomat from one of the mediating countries tells The Times of Israel.
The issue gained attention yesterday when the Kan public broadcaster reported that Hamas was assured by mediators that $400 million of its debt would be covered by the Board of Peace if it agreed to the disarmament plan.
Board of Peace Gaza envoy Nickolay Mladenov subsequently issued a statement denying the existence of a financial agreement with Hamas, while insisting that no Board of Peace funds would be channeled through the terror group.
The plan states that the new Palestinian technocratic government known as the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) “shall seek to assess the legitimate commitments to suppliers, contractors and other parties — up to a total amount of no more than $400M — and address them.”
Explaining the policy further, a source familiar with the matter tells The Times of Israel that upon taking power, the Board of Peace overseen-NCAG will conduct a lengthy audit of Hamas’s finances.
If the audit uncovers payments to contractors for “legitimate” activity that were not paid by Hamas, the NCAG will use that $400 million fund to pay back the contractors, the source says, adding that background checks will also be conducted to ensure that the contractors are not tied to terrorism.
In addition, the $400 million will be used to provide severance packages for Hamas civil servants who do not end up being hired by the NCAG during the transfer of governance that is expected to take place, the Arab diplomat says.
The diplomat notes that the severance packages are a legal requirement and necessary for limiting poverty in Gaza.
Police have blocked off major roads in the central Haredi city of Bnei Brak ahead of a protest by the extremist ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem Faction over the arrest of a yeshiva student yesterday.
Jabotinsky Road, which runs from Petah Tikva to Tel Aviv, has been shut down in Bnei Brak, and Route 4 has been shut down in the section between the Mesubim and Em HaMoshavot interchanges, which abuts the city from the east.
The Jerusalem Faction has called on adherents to “make the earth shake” after a Haredi youth was arrested for draft dodging yesterday, as he exited a police station where he was interrogated over an unrelated matter.
The Israel Airports Authority says in a statement that air traffic congestion over Greece will lead to delays in departing flights from Ben Gurion Airport for the next few hours.
“Following air traffic congestion over Greece, the Greek aviation authorities are currently limiting the number of flights permitted to pass through Greek airspace on their way to Europe,” the IAA says. “As a result, delays are expected for some flights departing from Ben Gurion Airport in the coming hours.”
August is one of the busiest months for air travel in Israel, with many families flying for summer vacations around the globe. The IAA said that close to 100,000 people are slated to pass through the airport each day.
A 33-year-old woman and her 43-year-old male partner were indicted at the Lod District Court today for alleged sexual assault and pornographic recording of the woman’s two young daughters and a pair of her infant relatives, prosecutors say in a statement.
The couple, from central Israel, met some 18 months ago on a dating app, the statement says. They allegedly exchanged child pornography, as well as pedophilic messages about children they might have and about the woman’s two daughters, respectively ages 8 and 12.
With the man’s “knowledge and encouragement,” the woman sent him pictures of her own daughters “in various positions, partially dressed, in underwear, bathing suits or nude,” the statement says.
It adds that “at the request and encouragement” of the man, the woman also sent him footage of herself raping the two infant relatives, respectively aged 1 and 3.
On at least two occasions, the man came to the woman’s home and performed indecent acts on the daughters or sexual acts with their mother in their presence, prosecutors say.
After her initial investigation, the woman deleted her correspondence with the man, but the messages were later recovered, according to the prosecutors.
The two suspects are charged on multiple counts, including rape of a relative who is a minor, possession and distribution of child pornography and obstruction of justice.
The indictment itself, including the names of the suspects, is under a gag order. The suspects are in custody, and the Central District Attorney’s Office has asked the court to extend their detention.
Kuwait’s interior ministry says it foiled a terrorist scheme to attack a vital facility in the country, the state news agency reports.
The ministry says one national was arrested who was identified as being affiliated with Islamic State, before he could carry out any attack.
The Board of Peace denies that there is any “financial agreement” with Hamas, after the Kan public broadcaster revealed that the body agreed to cover $400 million of Hamas’s debt to outside parties.
“The claims that there is a financial agreement between the Board of Peace and Hamas are false,” top Board of Peace representative to Gaza Nickolay Mladenov writes in Hebrew on X. “No such proposal was discussed, negotiated, or considered, and it will not be on the table in the future either.”
“Hamas will have no role in the governance of Gaza and will have no access to funds,” he continues.
“Board of Peace funds are not transferred through Hamas,” Mladenov declares. “Every contract undergoes review and approval, every project is verified before payment, and all accounts are fully open to audit by donor governments.”
“There are more than enough genuine challenges in this effort. There is no need to invent additional ones,” he adds.
A Board of Peace official stresses to The Times of Israel that clause 5 of the 15-point roadmap is not the same as a financial agreement.
“It allows legitimate outstanding obligations, such as unpaid public servants or suppliers who provided genuine services to the population, to be assessed on their merits. That should not be confused with paying Hamas or covering obligations linked to terrorism, corruption or financial mismanagement,” the official says.
In his post, Mladenov also pushes Israel to endorse the roadmap for Gaza disarmament, saying it is Jerusalem’s best option.
“Israel is not required to rely on trust or take irreversible steps before verified actions are taken on the ground,” says Mladenov. “The goal remains the complete dismantling of weapons and ensuring that Gaza can never again pose the kind of threat Israel experienced on October 7.”
“The alternatives are for Hamas to remain in power and rebuild its military capabilities, or for Israel to resume control over Gaza’s entire population, at an enormous human, military and economic cost,” he argues.
“The Board of Peace offers a third option: full disarmament, civilian governance, an international security presence under American command, and oversight and verification mechanisms,” says Mladenov.
The International Stabilization Force, he stresses, is meant to “support disarmament and the establishment of a civilian government in which Hamas has no role. That has been our position from the outset, and it has not changed.”
Mladenov also says that a mechanism for monitoring violations has begun its work.
Lebanon’s parliament passes a general amnesty law that, among other provisions, allows the families of citizens who fought in the Israel-backed South Lebanon Army to return to the country.
Fearing retribution from Hezbollah, thousands of SLA fighters and their families fled to Israel in 2000 when the IDF pulled out of Lebanon.
Lebanese citizens who “fled to Israel after the liberation of the south in 2000, including their families, will benefit definitively from the general amnesty, which finally opens the path for them to return to their homeland,” writes MP Ghana Ayoub of the Christian Lebanese Forces party.
“They are Lebanese, and Lebanon does not abandon its sons,” she writes on X.
This post has been updated to clarify the legislation.
The German government signs off on a major overhaul of the country’s intelligence agencies to give them broad new powers to conduct covert operations and take action against foreign threats.
Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt announces a “new era” for Germany’s secret services, which have until now been largely limited to gathering intelligence.
The services will get greater latitude to conduct non-lethal operations such as hacking enemy servers or conducting sabotage under the reforms, which still have to pass parliament before taking effect early next year.
Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition has argued that more powerful intelligence agencies are needed to counter the threats posed by hostile foreign powers, terrorist groups and cybercriminals.
The reforms will potentially allow the spy agencies to carry out cyberattacks of their own, such as disabling foreign IT systems being used by hostile actors or blocking flows of payments.
In rare situations, the BND spy agency could also receive permission to carry out foreign sabotage missions, though assassinations and other lethal operations would remain strictly forbidden.
Tech entrepreneur Mati Gill joins former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s B’Yachad party slate ahead of the upcoming October 27 election.
Gill served as chief of staff to Avi Dichter when Dichter was public security minister in 2006-2009, during which time Gill was shot by a Palestinian gunman during a briefing on the Gaza border. As an IDF officer, he helped establish a joint operations room for the IDF and US Central Command (CENTCOM). He went on to serve in senior roles at pharmaceutical giant Teva. He later established AION Labs, a venture studio incubating AI-focused pharmaceutical startups.
“Over the past 20 years, Mati has led major initiatives for Israeli technology, and God willing, he will lead major moves on these issues for the country after the elections. We must ensure that the best minds remain in the country and that Israel continues to be a technological beacon for the entire world,” says Bennett in a statement.
High-earning Israelis working in tech and healthcare are emigrating in sharply rising numbers, almost doubling over five years, a new study by the Israel Tax Authority recently found.
“After years of work in both the public and private sectors, I realized it was time to contribute what I have learned in service of the state,” says Gill. “Naftali Bennett is the right leader at the right time, he arrives prepared, experienced, with an excellent team and the courage to lead the deep changes the country needs. I am joining him to take part in this mission and lead the reform plan for high-tech, technology, science, and the healthcare system.”
The New York Times reports that the Iranians knew US President Donald Trump’s exact location when he stayed in Ankara last month for the NATO summit, including the specific floor of his hotel building, according to information obtained by US intelligence at the time.
US intelligence also had information about plans to fire a surface-to-air missile at Air Force One, and had received a report of a person with a shoulder-fired missile in the area of the summit, the paper says.
The report says the credibility of the threat led to the decision to secretly spirit Trump away from the Turkish capital in a military plane while using Air Force One as a decoy.
Former Shin Bet chief and Yashar party Knesset candidate Yoram Cohen sparks harsh criticism from the leaders of the anti-Netanyahu “Change Bloc” after he tells the Kan public broadcaster that under the next government, potentially up to 30 percent of Haredim will be exempt from military conscription.
According to Cohen, in Yashar’s conscription plan “up to three percent of the total recruitment, which can sometimes reach up to thirty percent of the entire ultra-Orthodox population,” could be eligible for exemptions.
In response, former prime minister Naftali Bennett posts on X that “there will be no compromises on recruitment” and that “everyone must enlist, and whoever doesn’t serve the state won’t get a single shekel from the state their whole life.”
“This is the only way to save the country, and therefore it’s a nonnegotiable condition for the next government,” Bennett insists.
Avigdor Liberman’s Yisrael Beytenu party says: “In the next government, everyone will serve in the IDF or in civilian service. There will be no exemption for 30% nor for 3%.”
IDF reservists have stopped journalists, including The Times of Israel, from approaching the homes of the two besieged Palestinian families on the outskirts of the village of Qusra, south of Nablus, presenting them with a closed military zone order.
According to the soldiers, they are Home Front Command reservists, rather than local settlement defense forces (Hagmar). Asked why, if there is a closed military zone order barring Israelis and other outsiders from entering the area, they are not evacuating the settlers surrounding the Palestinian homes, the soldiers said they are waiting for Border Police to arrive and remove them.
Earlier today, forces arrived and dismantled the shelter that had been erected at the entrance to the two homes, but settlers remained at the site, and the residents are still besieged.
North Korea performs its second ballistic missile test in less than a week, its neighbors say, a likely protest of the upcoming South Korea-US military drills that North Korea views as an invasion rehearsal.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff says a ballistic missile fired from the North’s eastern coastal Wonsan area around 6 a.m. flew more than 700 kilometers (435 miles). The Japanese Defense Ministry also detected the launch, saying the weapon landed in waters outside its exclusive economic zone, between the Korean Peninsula and Japan.
The launches, within days of each other, are seen as part of North Korea’s extended run of weapons tests as the country has refused to return to talks with the US and South Korea for years. Experts say North Korea often uses its rivals’ military training as a pretext to boost its own testing activities.
South Korea’s military says it remains ready to repel any provocation by Pyongyang in cooperation with the United States. South Korea’s national security council calls North Korean ballistic missile launches “acts of provocation” and urges the North to halt them immediately.
The latest launch comes two days after South Korea and the United States announced they will kick off their annual large-scale military drills on Aug. 17 to beef up readiness against North Korean threats.
There were no discussions between Iran and the United States on extending the ceasefire, a senior Iranian source tells Reuters.
The source says that from Tehran’s perspective, the deal had no start date, and therefore there is nothing to extend.
The source’s comments come after Turkey’s Anadolu news agency, citing Pakistani government sources, reported that Tehran and Washington agreed to extend a 60-day ceasefire under their interim deal signed in June.
“There is no talk of an extension because, from Iran’s perspective, there is no period that began and therefore nothing to extend. The United States violated the interim agreement 48 hours after it was reached and withdrew from it a few days later,” the source says.
“One of the issues that is being discussed via mediators is the US returning to the interim agreement and defining a timeframe for implementing the commitments. There has been absolutely no progress on this issue,” the source adds.
Sephora has no plans to open its own stores in Israel, the LVMH-owned beauty retailer says, denying media reports it would launch its first stores in the country later this month, while confirming a partnership with an Israeli retailer.
Sephora Collection, the company’s own beauty brand, has signed a temporary resale agreement with Israeli retailer Glam42, Sephora says in a statement, adding the products would be available in some Glam42 stores in Israel from the end of August.
Local media had widely reported in recent days that Glam42 would be opening stores under the Sephora brand as a franchisee.
Glam42 does not immediately reply to a request for comment.
After Israeli media reports about Sephora opening stores, Israel’s Foreign Ministry posted on X: “Welcome to Israel, Sephora!”
Sephora’s partnership with Glam42 comes as brands doing business in Israel are under pressure from a boycott movement that has grown since the start of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza.
Haredi protesters are expected to block roads in central Israel this afternoon over the arrest of an ultra-Orthodox draft dodger.
Demonstrations are expected around 4 p.m. in Bnei Brak and likely on the Route 4 highway, among other locations.
An internal Likud party court approves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision to grant a guaranteed spot on the party’s electoral slate to Likud Central Committee chair Haim Katz, only a day after it issued an interim order freezing a vote on the matter in the Likud secretariat.
On Tuesday, after the court declined to intervene, the Likud secretariat approved Netanyahu’s decision to grant guaranteed spots to Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Defense Minister Israel Katz ahead of the primary next week.
The Likud secretariat will now be asked to approve Haim Katz’s guaranteed spot.
Channel 12 reports that hundreds of people are aiding the search for Israelis Mali and Liel Yahalomi, a mother and daughter who went missing in Vienna on Friday.
A relative tells the network: “The ground has swallowed them up. Everyone is out searching for them, and there’s simply nothing. There are no leads whatsoever. We’re at a loss.”
Authorities currently do not have any leads on the disappearance of Mali, 50, and Liel, 23.
An unnamed Israeli official tells Ynet: “Everyone is out searching for them in an effort to locate them. Various parties are involved. They can’t be found anywhere. It doesn’t look good, but we hope they will be found safe and sound.”
The Tel Aviv District Attorney’s Office files an indictment against Ramat Gan resident Avraham Hadi for vandalism and intimidation at the Tel Aviv offices of Channel 12, Channel 13, Haaretz and the Justice Ministry.
Hadi, 44, is charged at the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court on several counts of intimidation and property damage.
He is also charged with obstruction of justice for allegedly disposing of evidence, as well as extortion for allegedly threatening Channel 12 that “someone will die” if the network doesn’t apologize for its reporting on the Sde Teiman prisoner abuse case.
Prosecutors say Hadi spray-painted the words “The blood of the traitors will be cleared for publication” on a wall outside the Channel 13 offices on November 19 last year.
Last month, Hadi allegedly smashed the glass entrances to the offices of the other media outlets and the Justice Ministry.
According to the indictment, he did so once at Haaretz, on July 8; twice at the Justice Ministry, on July 15 and 22; and twice at Channel 12, on July 5 and 28, leaving behind a letter with the death threat the second time.
On the evening of July 30, Hadi tossed in the trash of his Ramat Gan building the pants and shoes that he allegedly wore while carrying out the acts of vandalism, according to the indictment. He was arrested later that day and has since been in custody.
All the acts of vandalism were carried out before dawn. In each of the July acts, Hadi wielded two bricks and wore a mask and work gloves, the indictment says.
Hadi carried out the attacks in light of “his views about the justice system and the media outlets,” with intent to “intimidate or mock” the outlets’ workers, the indictment says.
The indictment does not allege Hadi was trying to intimidate Justice Ministry workers. He faces only property damage charges over the attacks on the ministry’s Tel Aviv offices.
Bank Leumi, one of Israel’s two largest lenders, saw its quarterly profit jump to a record NIS 2.8 billion ($940 million) in the April to June period, benefiting from robust growth in credit and loans to households and businesses.
Net income in the second quarter of 2026 rose 8.5 percent to NIS 2.8 billion from NIS 2.6 billion during the same period last year. Excluding the impact of the special surtax imposed on banks, net income in the second quarter would have amounted to NIS 3.1 billion, Leumi says.
During the quarter, Leumi says it continued to focus on credit growth in the corporate, commercial and mortgage segments.
Net credit to the public as of June 30, 2026, amounted to NIS 566.5 billion, up 15.8% from the NIS 489.2 billion recorded a year ago. Corporate credit totaled NIS 188.5 billion at the end of June, up 22.1% from NIS 154.5 billion versus the same period a year ago.
Housing loans or mortgages rose 7.7% to NIS 163.1 billion at the end of June, from NIS 151.5 billion year-on-year.
Meanwhile, net interest income increased 0.7% to NIS 4.57 billion in the reported quarter from NIS 4.54 billion during the same period in 2025. Non-interest income, which includes commissions and fee income, jumped 39.4% to NIS 2 billion, compared with NIS 1.45 billion a year earlier.
German travel giant TUI says that bookings are returning to normal levels despite the ongoing Mideast war, as it presents its latest financial results.
Tourism in Europe is experiencing a turbulent summer marked by soaring jet fuel prices because of the US and Israeli war against Iran, as well as heatwaves and wildfires in Spain, France, Portugal and Greece.
Though booked revenue for the summer is down six percent from the same season last year, TUI — the world’s largest travel group — says bookings over the past four weeks have risen seven percent.
The company notes renewed interest in Eastern Mediterranean destinations as holidaymakers return to the region after months of geopolitical uncertainty.
“Business is coming back, it’s normalizing,” chief executive Sebastian Ebel says on an earnings call. “We have seen strong weeks.”
The Mideast war has hit airlines as well as cruise operators with higher fuel prices, leading many clients to change their travel plans.
TUI’s airlines do not currently fly to Israel.
Lebanon’s parliament passes a sweeping and long-awaited amnesty law that should benefit thousands of prisoners and wanted people, in the first legislation of its kind since 1991.
The office of the speaker of parliament announces the “approval of a draft law aimed at granting a general amnesty and exceptionally reducing the terms of certain sentences,” which had been a demand of various political factions and a topic of debate for years in Lebanon.
Security forces briefly return to the outpost established at the entrance to Palestinian homes on the outskirts of the village of Qusra, south of Nablus. The settler activists’ tent at the site was dismantled this morning following clashes, but several settlers remained there.
After some time, the forces leave again.
כך זה נראה מתוך הבתים בקוסרה בדקות האחרונות אחרי שכוחות מג"ב חזרו למקום pic.twitter.com/nf1QLaqn7Z
— Nurit Yohanan (@nurityohanan) August 12, 2026
The New York Times notes that when US President Donald Trump was snuck away from Air Force One last month to another plane due to the threat of an Iranian attack, the presidential plane was allowed to depart as a decoy with numerous government officials and journalists on board, potentially endangering all of their lives.
The officials included Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, as well as top aides Stephen Miller and Steven Cheung.
“They just didn’t seem to give a second thought to anybody but the president and the few people who were with him,” Joe Lockhart, a former White House press secretary for Bill Clinton, tells the paper. “We went out of our way to make sure the maximum number of people, especially civilians, were protected and not human shields. They didn’t even think about it.”
An adviser to former president George W. Bush has a different take.
“I understand there is concern for those flying on what was assumed to be the primary aircraft,” Joseph W. Hagin says. “But when you go to work at the White House or travel with the president, you are accepting a not-insignificant degree of risk. Telling everyone what’s up in an operation like this would have obviously jeopardized the president’s safety.”
The remains of a Jewish man who was killed while trying to escape a British internment camp in Cyprus in 1948, and who was considered missing since, have been located at a graveyard in Haifa, the military says.
Shlomo Haimson, born in Romania in 1930, tried to immigrate to Israel after World War II with his mother, Ita, and his girlfriend, Perla, aboard the illegal immigration ship SS Pan York (Kibbutz Galuyot).
The ship was intercepted by the UK’s Royal Navy, and its passengers were deported by British authorities to internment camps in Cyprus.
At the detention camp, Haimson joined the “Defenders’ Ranks,” which operated in the camps under the auspices of the Haganah paramilitary, and was then trained to become an IDF fighter upon immigrating to Israel.
Upon the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, Haimson’s mother and girlfriend were released and immigrated to Israel as part of a group designated to establish Kibbutz Magen. In September 1948, Haimson learned that his daughter, Miriam, had been born, and decided to escape from the camp and immigrate to Israel.
On the night of September 29–30, 1948, Haimson and eight of his friends broke through the camp fences and attempted to escape, but were spotted by the camp guards, who opened fire at them. Haimson was killed, and his friends were captured and returned to the camp.
The following day, Haimson was buried by British authorities in a Jewish cemetery in the Cypriot town of Marathounta, but the gravestone placed bore no inscription.
In November 1970, the bodies of 163 individuals, 120 of whom were unidentified, were exhumed from the Marathounta cemetery and brought to Israel for burial at a special section at the Kfar Samir Cemetery in Haifa.
The military says an investigation it launched in 2023 has led to the conclusion that Haimson’s remains were brought to Israel in 1970 and were buried in grave number 11, row 2, in the Cyprus Detainees section of the cemetery in Haifa.
Last night, the IDF’s defense attaché in Brazil, Col. Uri Ron, updated Haimson’s family, including his daughter Miriam, grandchildren and great-grandchildren, who currently live in Rio de Janeiro, on the findings.
The IDF says that in the near future, an official ceremony will be held to add a headstone with Haimson’s name to the grave in Haifa.
IDF troops have left the location of an outpost established by settlers at the entrance to two homes on the outskirts of the Palestinian village of Qusra, south of Nablus, following widespread clashes with the settlers.
The Times of Israel, at the scene, documents settlers still at the entrance that leads to both homes, even though the tent where they had been sitting was dismantled.
אני כרגע באזור קוסרה. הצבא עזב לפני זמן קצר את המקום אחרי עימותים (גררו טרקטורון על כביש 505 אבל הייתי בנהיגה ולא יכולתי לצלם). עדיין יש מתנחלים ליד שני הבתים כפי שניתן לראות בתיעוד, והדרך לפי תושבי הבתים עדיין חסומה pic.twitter.com/dz4H70VRgR
— Nurit Yohanan (@nurityohanan) August 12, 2026
Yusuf Hassan, the owner of one of the two homes, tells The Times of Israel that the entrance remains blocked.
Pakistan’s interior minister is visiting Iran to discuss regional security, stability and other developments, the foreign office says.
“He is discussing bilateral relations, security, regional security and stability, and constructive engagement amongst the parties in the region and regional developments,” foreign ministry spokesman Tahir Andrabi, whose government has been mediating to end the fighting in the Middle East, tells reporters in Islamabad.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appoints freshman Likud MK Avichai Boaron as head of the party’s field operations ahead of the October 27 Knesset election.
He will serve as director of Likud’s field headquarters, working with the party’s campaign team and coordinating with municipal field activists and mobilizing voters.
“Avichai proved his organizational and field capabilities when he led the pro-government rallies about two years ago, and he possesses extensive knowledge in voter turnout operations. I am confident that together with Avichai and the Likud field base, God willing, we will achieve victory in the upcoming election,” Netanyahu says in a statement.
Oren Smadja, a former Olympic bronze medalist in judo who went on to coach the Israeli national team, joins Gilad Erdan and Yuli Edelstein’s Unity party.
Smadja “represented the State of Israel with honor, and after being the coach of the Israeli national team, now joins the excellent team of the Unity party, which is the only party that is both a true right-wing party and will lead to true [Haredi] conscription and the establishment of a broad Zionist government,” the Ynet news site quotes Erdan as saying.
Smadja, who lost his son fighting in Gaza, says the highs and lows of his life have convinced him that “there is one thing that is more important than any political dispute: unity.”
“All my life I have worn the Israeli flag on my suit. I decided it was time to take action for unity. I received many offers from the political system, but I chose to join Gilad Erdan because I believe in him and the path he leads: a true and responsible right wing, which believes that everyone must serve the country and that this value is the basis for unity among us,” he adds.
Smadja is the second candidate to join Erdan and Edelstein since the announcement of their new party last week, following former Beit Shemesh mayor Aliza Bloch.
Unity is one of the parties of the so-called “Third Bloc” pushing for a broad Zionist unity government
In a surprise outcome, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley is the projected winner in the Wisconsin gubernatorial primary, eking out a victory over progressive candidate Francesca Hong in a highly watched contest, where progressive Democrats had hoped to secure another win one week after their successful showing in a Michigan senate race.
Polls had placed Hong, a democratic socialist, way ahead of her rival, but with 98% of the votes counted, the Associated Press declares Crowley the winner by a narrow margin of 39.8% compared to 39.4% for Hong.
Speaking ahead of the final vote tally, Hong told her cheering supporters, “It is an honor of my lifetime to be your candidate for governor.”
Hong’s record on Israel and antisemitism was of concern to Wisconsin Jews, as well as Democratic figureheads more broadly. She has appeared on livestream fundraisers with Hasan Piker, the left-wing strident Israel critic who has also rallied with Hong, as well as twice with Michael Beyer, a.k.a. “Mike from PA,” who has called Jewish identity “a constructed ethnicity, this demonic ethnicity, wholly invented.”
On one of her appearances with Beyer, Hong urged constituents to fundraise for people on the “front lines in Gaza.” She has called the war there a genocide.
Crowley will face off against Republican US Representative Tom Tiffany in the November election.
The military confirms that it has begun to evacuate a settler outpost established at the entrance to Palestinian homes in a West Bank village.
The IDF also says that soldiers filmed this week arriving at the structure erected by the settlers in the village of Qusra and praying with them, rather than removing them, will face disciplinary action.
Senior military officials, including Central Command chief Maj. Gen. Avi Bluth, also met this morning with the Palestinian family that has been under siege by settlers in Qusra for several days.
According to the IDF, the settler outpost outside the Palestinian homes was established in Area B of the West Bank, and a closed military zone order was issued for the area.
“Border Police forces evacuated the canopy and are working to evacuate the civilians who were staying there. The incident is ongoing at this time, and security forces are on the ground,” the army says.
Bluth, West Bank division chief Brig. Gen. Kobi Heller, and commander of the Border Police’s West Bank division Assistant Commissioner Niso Guetta also toured several nearby settler outposts this morning.
“During the tour, the commanders addressed seriously the actions carried out by Israeli civilians against the Palestinian family, and ordered a number of steps going forward,” the army says, without detailing them.
“It was also decided to take disciplinary action against the force involved that was documented at the site several days ago,” the military adds, referring to the footage of the troops praying alongside the settlers.
The evacuation of a settler outpost next to two Palestinian homes on the outskirts of the Palestinian village of Qusra was apparently leaked to the media before it was carried out.
Reports this morning in Hebrew-language media said that the IDF and Border Police dismantled the outpost and removed the settler activists from the area.
However, only around an hour later did the army begin to destroy the outpost. Clashes are still taking place in the area, with the settlers blocking an entrance road to the Qusra homes with rocks, footage shows.
המצור בקוסרה: פורעים יהודים חוסמים את הדרכים עם אבנים@HGoldich pic.twitter.com/yGuN6JVMpY
— כאן חדשות (@kann_news) August 12, 2026
A security source cited by Army Radio says that “the evacuation of the outpost in Qusra was leaked to the media before the outpost was actually evacuated.”
“This caused dozens of Jewish rioters to have time to arrive at the site before the forces actually managed to evacuate the outpost. There is now a mass riot by dozens of settlers in the village,” the source says.
Former Otzma Yehudit MK Almog Cohen announces he will be running in the Likud primary.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu welcomes the move, praising the ultranationalist as a “warrior” in a joint video address announcing his candidacy.
“Almog, I am glad today to officially welcome you into the ranks of Likud,” Netanyahu says, noting that he waived tenure requirements to allow the newly minted Likud member to run in the August 17 party primary.
“This is a warrior, a man of the Negev who chewed my ear off to bring an airport to the Negev. Well done. And he was with us on the decisive vote to pass the budget. I’m not forgetting that. I thank you,” Netanyahu adds, referring both to Cohen’s push to approve a new airport in the south and his willingness to buck party discipline to help pass the 2025 budget.
Thanking Netanyahu, Cohen calls for the “victory of the camp under your leadership.”
אני מודה על הזכות להמשיך ולשרת אתכם, אזרחי ישראל, ולהתמודד בפריימריז בליכוד. אני בטוח כי כפי שהייתי לצידכם בטוב וברע- כך אתם תהיו לצידי.
אני מודה לראש הממשלה, בנימין נתניהו, על האמון והדרך המשותפת.בשם ה׳ נעשה ונצליח???????????????? pic.twitter.com/huJsaLBnHB
— אלמוג כהן Almog cohen (@almog_cohen08) August 12, 2026
The former police officer and restaurateur was elected to the Knesset on Itamar Ben Gvir’s far-right Otzma Yehudit slate in 2022. He quickly developed a reputation as a firebrand, calling for opposition leaders to “be put in handcuffs,” screaming at the families of hostages held in Gaza that they were “representing Hamas,” and being reprimanded by the Knesset Ethics Committee for likening Arab party MKs to sheep.
He was also the subject of a criminal probe, since closed, into allegations that he used violence against a civilian during his service in the Israel Police over a decade ago.
Beyond clashing with ideological opponents in the Knesset, Cohen also quarreled with his colleagues, repeatedly voting with the coalition despite Otzma Yehudit’s decision to oppose the 2025 state budget — an approach that led the party to slap him with several sanctions, including exclusion from faction meetings and removal from the party’s internal WhatsApp groups.
And as Netanyahu alluded to today, his abstention during a committee vote on an important budget-related bill in January 2025 paved the way for the bill to go to the plenum for its second and third readings.
Cohen was also the sole Otzma Yehudit lawmaker not to temporarily resign from the coalition over the cabinet’s approval of a ceasefire agreement with Hamas in the Gaza Strip that month, prompting Ben Gvir to say that “his place is in Likud and I wish him great success.”
Cohen was later appointed by Netanyahu to a deputy ministerial position and resigned as a lawmaker under the law, which allows cabinet members and deputy ministers to resign their Knesset seats while they hold their ministerial posts.
In a statement, Cohen says that he is “grateful for the privilege of continuing to serve you, the citizens of Israel, and to run in the Likud primaries. I am certain that just as I have been by your side through good and bad, you will be by my side. I thank Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for his trust.”
A female pedestrian has been killed after being hit by a car in Hadera.
Paramedics who arrived on the scene say the woman, in her mid 60s, was found pinned down and without signs of life, and was declared dead.
Four drones hit three Iranian Kurdish opposition camps near Erbil in Iraq on Wednesday, with no casualties reported, security sources tell Reuters.
Former chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, one of the spiritual leaders of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, is urging associates and students not to vote for the party in the upcoming election, arguing the hard-right government must be brought down, Haaretz reports.
Citing several sources who spoke to the rabbi, the newspaper quotes Yosef as saying: “The time has come for us to bring down the right. We’ll get nothing from the right. Only with the left can we reach agreements.”
One student tells Haaretz: “Rabbi Yosef demanded that I promise him I would not vote for Shas, that I ask my family not to vote for the party, and that I publicize his request to anyone I could.”
Another source says, “He doesn’t even hide it. [Shas leader Aryeh] Deri also knows that Rabbi Yitzhak is asking people not to vote for the party.”
They add: “The moment this is made public, he will of course deny it, but in conversations at home, he says it clearly.”
Another student says: “He told me, ‘Netanyahu and the Religious Zionism [party] hate us, but the left respects us. The left just wants power and doesn’t want to hurt us. We can work with them.'”
The report says that after Yosef recently called Netanyahu “a liar” and spoke well of Yashar party chief Gadi Eisenkot, he was strongly reprimanded by Deri.
“The rabbi told me that Deri had screamed at him,” a student recounts. “He said to me, ‘Did you see that? A political operator yelling at a rabbi. Where is the respect for Torah?’ The rabbi was very hurt by it.”
A spokesman for Yosef denies the report. “It never happened,” he says. “It is unfortunate that there are people from within our own ranks spreading falsehoods in the rabbi’s name with the aim of sowing division.”
Former prime minister and B’Yachad party chief Naftali Bennett denounces Jewish “terrorists” in the West Bank and says administrative detention should be reinstated for the most dangerous figures
Bennett tells 103FM Radio: “There are 550,000 Israelis in Judea and Samaria, the vast majority of whom are law-abiding. They serve in the military reserves and pay taxes — regular people whom I really love.”
But, he adds, “There is a minority that breaks the law, and the law should be enforced with a firm hand against anyone who breaks it.”
Asked if security forces should once again use the tool of administrative detention against top offenders, Bennett says: “Where it’s relevant, yes. Where it’s not relevant, no. I’m not afraid of it.”
Under administrative detention individuals can be held without charge for up to six months at a time. The detentions can be renewed indefinitely while allowing military prosecutors to keep suspects from being able to see the evidence against them. The practice is primarily deployed against Palestinian terror suspects, but has also been used against some extremist Jewish Israelis in the past.
Defense Minister Israel Katz halted administrative detention orders against Jewish suspects when he entered his post in 2024. Settler attacks on Palestinians have soared.
Asked if Jewish extremist attacks on Palestinians are terror, Bennett says they are.
“This minority, and I emphasize a minority, is certainly engaging in terrorism. When you attack civilians in order to terrorize them, this minority is committing terrorism. Absolutely. Burning a house with its occupants inside? That’s not Judaism, it’s not our values.”
Clashes are currently taking place between settlers who established an outpost at the entrance to two Palestinian homes on the outskirts of the Palestinian village of Qusra and Israeli security forces who arrived to evacuate them.
Since Sunday, settlers have been blocking the homes on the outskirts of the village, preventing people from entering or leaving, and have also cut the electricity lines.
Youssef Hassan, the owner of one of the homes, tells The Times of Israel that large numbers of settlers arrived from outposts in the area this morning and that Border Police officers are using riot dispersal means against them, including tear gas.
Central Command chief Maj. General Avi Bluth has also arrived in the area.
כעת כוחות הביטחון, עפ״י תיעוד – בנוכחות האלוף, מנסים לפנות את המתנחלים משלוחת המאחז בקוסרה ולהחרים מהם כלי רכב. בינתיים עשרות מתנחלים מתאספים במרחב וחוסמים צירים באמצעות אבנים, בעוד מסתמן שכרגע הכוחות בנחיתות מספרית. https://t.co/SrhXYaNgs2 pic.twitter.com/bZuDRXRNnK
— Matan Golan (@MatanGolanPhoto) August 12, 2026
Last night, a Palestinian ambulance reached one of the homes and evacuated a mother and her two daughters, one of whom required medical treatment.
Justice Minister Yariv Levin has said liberal Supreme Court justices “will become extinct” if the current hard-right government gets another term, Kan news reports.
The network airs a recording of Levin at a recent meeting with Likud activists. The minister — who led efforts to overhaul the judiciary and whose term in office has been marked by repeated public clashes with the justice system and efforts to bend it to his will — is heard saying he’d held a conversation with a Supreme Court judge in which the judge said that Levin’s preferred candidates for court judges were “not up to our standards.”
“I told him, and I keep telling the judges all the time, that I believe we will win,” Levin says.
And with two-thirds of the Supreme Court justices up for replacement in the next few years, “We won’t need judicial reform anymore. You will simply become extinct.”
Levin says he plans to make appointments “that will fundamentally change the court,” naming as examples conservative legal scholar Aviad Bakshi, who is head of the legal department at the Kohelet Policy Forum, and Raphael Bitton, an architect of the judicial overhaul.
A man aged around 60 was shot dead in Shfaram, near Haifa, early this morning.
The man was found shot in his vehicle. Paramedics who arrived on the scene declared him dead.
Police are investigating the case.
Anti-Israel democratic socialist Francesca Hong and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley are neck and neck in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin.
The winner will advance to face Republican Tom Tiffany.
Hong is counting on support from her home city of Madison, the liberal state capital, to overcome Crowley, who has served as the top elected official in Milwaukee County for six years.
Crowley has the endorsement of two-term Governor Tony Evers and has been running as the more moderate choice.
Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
Speaking with reporters, US President Donald Trump stresses that he “doesn’t trust Iran.”
“Are you saying I trust Iran?! I’m the last person to trust Iran,” he insists. “They’ve lied to me constantly. We have total control over the Hormuz strait right now… we own it.”
“At some point maybe they’ll do something and get blown away, but right now we’re in a very good position,” Trump further claims. He describes the Islamic Republic as “the bully of the Middle East” since its founding in 1979, but “no longer.”
US President Donald Trump says that he slipped away from Air Force One after a recent summit in Turkey because the Secret Service and military wanted him on a “different plane” due to a threat.
“I go by Secret Service and the military. They wanted me to go in a different flight, different plane,” Trump says of sneaking off the presidential plane.
His comments confirm a report that first appeared in the Washington Post on Monday saying that Trump stowed away in an airport catering container to slip into another plane while Air Force One — filled with White House officials, security and support staff, and reporters — was sent into the sky out of Turkey, essentially as a decoy, just in case Iran made good on a credible threat of an attack.
“I just have to do what they say,” Trump tells reporters after a trip to Ohio.
He asserts the plan he secretly flew on was “at greater risk.”
“I think actually the plane that I flew on was at greater risk,” Trump says. “I think it was at greater risk because that would be the plane I think that they would be more likely to go for.”
Lindsey Graham’s sister Darline Graham has advanced to the runoff for the Republican US Senate nomination in South Carolina, according to US media projections.
Graham will be one of two candidates to advance to the runoff in August, as no one is set to gain more than 50 percent of the vote.
The Israel Defense Forces says that its air defenses launched an interceptor toward a target in southern Lebanon that was later determined to be gunfire by Israeli troops operating in the area.
The military says no injuries occurred and that the incident is being investigated.
