Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief
The Times of Israel liveblogged Friday’s events as they happened.
Air Force One is wheels down in Alaska for US President Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The White House updates reporters that the meeting will no longer be a one-on-one, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio and special envoy Steve Witkoff slated to join Trump, who will meet with Putin and two of his top advisers.
Critics of Trump had expressed concern over his initial plan to meet with Putin alone.
Talks about resettling Gazans from the war-torn Strip to South Sudan have been ongoing between Jerusalem and the troubled African nation, despite a fervent denial issued by the latter government, three sources familiar with the matter tell Reuters.
The sources, who have knowledge of the matter and are speaking on condition of anonymity, say no agreement has been reached, but that talks between South Sudan and Israel were ongoing.
The plan, if carried further, would envisage people moving from an enclave shattered by almost two years of war with Israel to a nation in the heart of Africa riven by years of political and ethnically-driven violence.
Arab and world leaders have rejected the idea of moving Gaza’s population to any country. Palestinians say that would be like another “Nakba” (catastrophe) when hundreds of thousands fled or were forced out during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948.
The three sources say the prospect of resettling Palestinians in South Sudan was raised during meetings between Israeli officials and South Sudanese Foreign Minister Monday Semaya Kumba when he visited the country last month.
Their account appeared to contradict South Sudan’s foreign ministry, which on Wednesday dismissed earlier reports on the plan as “baseless.”
The ministry was not immediately available to respond to the sources’ assertions on Friday.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel, who visited the South Sudanese capital Juba this week, told Reuters that those discussions had not focused on relocation.
“This is not what the discussions were about,” she said when asked if any such plan had been discussed.
“The discussions were about foreign policy, about multilateral organizations, about the humanitarian crisis, the real humanitarian crisis happening in South Sudan, and about the war,” she said, referring to her talks with Juba officials.
Netanyahu, who met Kumba last month, has said Israel is in touch with a few countries to find a destination for Palestinians who want to leave Gaza. He has consistently declined to provide further details.
Israeli Air Force fighter jets struck a Hezbollah facility and a tunnel belonging to the terror group near the Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon a short while ago, the IDF says.
The military says the existence of the site is a violation of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.
צה״ל תקף תשתיות צבאיות באתר של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה בדרום לבנון
צה״ל תקף לפני זמן קצר, באמצעות מטוסי קרב של חיל האוויר, תשתית צבאית ותשתית תת קרקעית באתר של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה, בהם זוהתה פעילות צבאית במרחב רכס הבופור שבדרום לבנון.
קיום האתר והפעילות בו מהווים הפרה של ההבנות… pic.twitter.com/5swzmgRUex
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) August 15, 2025
“We will not budge from our policy of maximum enforcement and will not allow threats to arise against the residents of the north and all citizens of Israel,” Defense Minister Israel Katz says in a statement on the strikes.
In a message to Lebanon’s new President Joseph Aoun, Katz says Israel views Beirut as “directly responsible for enforcing Lebanon’s sovereignty and upholding the ceasefire agreement.”
The Lebanese government has been working to disarm Hezbollah, but has sometimes been criticized for not doing so effectively. Critics of Israeli policy, however, argue that carrying out such strikes too regularly without giving the Lebanese government the opportunity to dismantle Hezbollah on its own may risk undermining the first-ever government that has expressed a genuine willingness to address the issue.
Hamas negotiators in Cairo this week have signaled a willingness to come down from demands they made last month that led to the collapse of hostage talks in Doha, an Israeli official and an Arab diplomat familiar with the matter tell The Times of Israel.
Arab mediators have passed along the development to Israel, but Jerusalem has responded that it is not interested in another partial ceasefire and is only willing to forgo its plans to take over Gaza City if Hamas agrees to all of its demands for ending the war, the Israeli official says.
Those demands include the release of all 50 remaining hostages, the disarmament of Hamas and the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip.
But the gaps on those issues are very wide, particularly regarding the disarmament of Hamas, with the Arab mediators believing that it is a “poison pill” designed to blow up the talks, as it will likely require ongoing intensive Israeli military operations in Gaza in order to verify that it is being upheld, the Arab diplomat says.
Instead, the Arab mediators prefer a gradual approach to dealing with Hamas’s weapons, akin to the system that is in place in Lebanon. Arab countries are willing to contribute troops to this effort on the condition that it is at the invitation of the Palestinian Authority, the diplomat recalls.
But another one of Israel’s conditions for ending the war is barring any PA role in the governance of Gaza, effectively preventing the Arab initiative from moving forward.
Despite opposition from Jerusalem, Egyptian and Qatari mediators are planning to resume talks with Hamas on Saturday aimed at getting the group’s final approval on an updated proposal that is far closer to the one that the US and Israel authorized last month.
While it has been characterized as a partial deal, the Arab diplomat stresses that it still has the potential to turn into a permanent ceasefire if the sides hold successful negotiations during the envisioned 60-day truce. During that two-month period, 10 living hostages and 18 bodies will be released in exchange for an agreed-upon number of Palestinian security prisoners.
The US and Israel pulled their negotiators out of Doha last month due to frustration over Hamas’s demands regarding the scope of the IDF’s withdrawal from Gaza, the humanitarian aid mechanisms that will be in place during the truce and the number of Palestinian security prisoners it was demanding, the Israeli official says.
If Hamas gives its final approval of a softened proposal that comes down from those demands in the coming days, the mediators will present it to Israel, forcing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to decide whether to retreat from his declarations that he will no longer accept partial deals.
If he agrees to walk back those assertions, the sides will still have to hold another round of talks to agree on the Palestinian security prisoners to be released in the deal, the Arab diplomat clarifies.
The Israeli official says that the security establishment will likely urge the political echelon to take the deal, as it will secure the release of at least 10 living hostages, whereas the Gaza City takeover will risk the lives of some of those captives, with no guarantee that the military pressure will lead Hamas to capitulate.
Netanyahu currently feels that Hamas is buying time by expressing interest to mediators in a partial deal when it is not actually serious and that only military pressure will secure the release of all remaining hostages, the Israeli official adds.
Meanwhile, Channel 12 reports that Netanyahu received a “dramatic” document from who the network dubbed as a “professional” source involved in the negotiations, expressing in writing Hamas’s willingness to reach a partial deal after the terror group long insisted that it would only release additional hostages in exchange for an up-front Israeli commitment for a permanent ceasefire.
While Hamas appeared to forgo that demand earlier this summer, its subsequent demands were rejected by Israel and the US, leading to the talks’ collapse.
The Arab diplomat argues that Israel raised new demands of its own in June relating to the scope of its withdrawal that led the talks to drag out before the US eventually convinced Netanyahu to come down from them. But by then, Hamas came back with new demands of its own, and the window of opportunity for a deal was missed, the diplomat says.
Israelis protesting for a hostage deal hold a Kabbalat Shabbat reception outside Defense Minister Israel Katz’s home in Kfar Ahim.
One of the speakers at the gathering is former hostage Sasha Troufanov, who laments his friends who have been left behind in Gaza captivity — “people who no longer remember what freedom is, who would give anything to be here today and stand by me.”
“You have been denying them this right for 679 days. You are willing to sacrifice their freedom in order to achieve a victory that you yourself do not know how to define,” Troufanov says.
“We do not have time for any more attempts to exert pressure or to try different negotiation strategies. You made the promise to return them at the beginning of the war and promises must be kept. Bring them home. Give them their lives back. It is in your hands,” Troufanov adds.
Netanyahu’s critics have accused him of dragging out the war in pursuit of a “total victory” that doesn’t have clearly defined parameters beyond the dismantlement of Hamas’s military and governing capabilities. He at times has said he is willing to fight until the last gunman and is characterizing Gaza City as the last remaining Hamas stronghold that the IDF plans to soon take over, even though he referred to Rafah in the same light a year and a half ago. Hamas in the meantime has transitioned to a guerrilla force that has managed to continue recruiting new operatives, as Israel has refused to stage a viable alternative to the terror group amid the government’s opposition to the internationally-backed Palestinian Authority.
שורדי שבי ומשפחות חטופים בקבלת שבת מול בית שר הביטחון כ"ץ: ״אנחנו דורשים מהממשלה – בואו תהיו איתנו בארוחת שישי! תראו את הסבל של המשפחות והשורדים ושל עם שלם שלא ממשיך בחיים״
שורד השבי סשה טרופנוב: ״אין לנו זמן לעוד ניסיונות להפעלת לחץ ואסטרטגיות משא ומתן, את ההבטחה להחזיר אותם… pic.twitter.com/02SQmqyWAU
— i24NEWS (@i24NEWS_HE) August 15, 2025
US President Donald Trump spoke with Belarusian leader Alexander Lukashenko — a close ally of Vladimir Putin — by telephone, hours ahead of the US and Russian leaders’ summit in Alaska.
Belarus has backed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and allowed Russia’s army to use its territory as a launchpad for its first wave of attacks in early 2022.
“I had a wonderful talk with the highly respected President of Belarus, Aleksandr Lukashenko. We discussed many topics, including President Putin’s visit to Alaska,” Trump says in a post on his Truth Social platform, which was sent while he was en route to the talks aboard Air Force One.
Trump says that he had thanked Lukashenko for freeing political prisoners and said that the two sides were “discussing the release of 1,300 additional prisoners.”
According to the Belarus state news agency BELTA, “Lukashenko invited Trump and his family to visit Belarus, and he agreed.”
The leaders also discussed bilateral relations and the war in Ukraine, BELTA added.
Lukashenko has ruled Belarus since 1994 and has stamped out free media and political opposition in an increasingly authoritarian rule.
According to a latest estimate by the Belarusian rights group Viasna, the country has 1,186 political prisoners. Many of them were arrested following widespread protests that gripped the nation in 2020 after Lukashenko claimed victory in an election marred with allegations of fraud.
In late June, Lukashenko released more than a dozen political prisoners, among them top opposition figure Sergei Tikhanovsky, following an appeal from the White House.
The Kremlin says it expects the Alaska summit between presidents Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump to last at least six to seven hours, Russian state TV reported Friday.
“You can expect that it will take up a minimum of six to seven hours,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tells Russia’s Channel One state TV ahead of the summit, adding that Moscow anticipated a “productive” meeting.
The UN human rights office says that at least 1,760 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid in Gaza since late May, a jump of several hundred since its last published figure at the beginning of August.
“Since 27 May, and as of 13 August, we have recorded that at least 1,760 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid; 994 in the vicinity of GHF (Gaza Humanitarian Foundation) sites and 766 along the routes of supply convoys. Most of these killings were committed by the Israeli military,” the agency’s office for the Palestinian territories says in a statement.
That compares with a figure of 1,373 killed, the office reported on August 1.
The IDF has acknowledged firing warning shots toward those who pose a threat to soldiers, while insisting that Hamas is inflating the death count at each of these incidents. It has not provided alternative figures, though, and hasn’t allowed journalists to freely operate in Gaza in order to verify the toll.
Those firing the warning shots are soldiers not trained in crowd control the way police officers are and aren’t provided with non-lethal means to employ in Gaza while they are carrying out other combat missions.
While the majority of reported deaths have taken place en route to GHF sites, the past several weeks have seen double the casualties near the convoys of the UN and other international organizations.
This appears to be tied to the ongoing chaos surrounding UN convoys, which are quickly overrun by desperate Gazans before they make it to warehouses or distribution sites. Nearly 90% of UN aid is not reaching intended destinations throughout Gaza, according to UN figures.
The latest update comes as Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense agency says at least 23 people were killed by Israeli fire on Friday, including 12 who were waiting for humanitarian aid.
The Israeli military says it is looking into the reports when contacted by AFP for comment.
Lebanon’s Prime Minister Nawaf Salam blasts Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem’s “unacceptable” apparent threat that the country will have “no life” if it tries to confront and disarm the terror group.
“No party in Lebanon is authorized to bear arms outside the framework of the Lebanese state,” Salam says in a post on X carrying his statements from an interview with the pan-Arab Asharq Al-Awsat newspaper.
“This is our nation together. We live in dignity together, and we build its sovereignty together — or Lebanon will have no life if you stand on the other side and try to confront us and eliminate us,” Qassem said earlier in a televised speech.
The IDF provides new details on its fresh offensive in the Zeitoun area on the outskirts of Gaza City, which was launched earlier this week.
The offensive is being carried out by the 99th Division with the Nahal Infantry Brigade and 7th Armored Brigade.
According to the IDF, the troops have so far demolished dozens of “terror targets,” including booby-trapped buildings and sites where weapons were stored, and killed some 20 terror operatives.
In one incident, the military says the 7th Brigade troops spotted several operatives who fired an RPG at a tank, without causing injuries. The operatives were then eliminated in a strike, according to the IDF.
The Nahal Brigade troops have meanwhile been working on clearing the area of Hamas infrastructure and establishing control. The army says the Nahal soldiers killed several operatives who were spotted planting bombs, and others who approached the forces.
Additionally, the division’s 990th Artillery Regiment has provided the ground troops with covering fire. Ahead of the offensive and during it, the IDF says the artillery unit shelled terror infrastructure and killed several operatives, including a Hamas platoon commander in the Zeitoun Battalion.
The Israeli Air Force has also been provided support, striking Hamas sites and operatives in the area.
Ahead of the operation, the IDF issued multiple evacuation warnings for Palestinian civilians who were residing in the area.
Aircraft from the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, and — for the first time — Singapore airdropped 127 pallets of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip today, the IDF says.
Each pallet contains around one ton of food.
Israel re-adopted a policy of allowing aid airdrops on July 26, amid mounting international criticism over the hunger crisis in Gaza. But airdrops are only able to deliver a small fraction of what can come into Gaza by land. They also pose safety risks for the civilians who can be hit by the packages from above.
US President Donald Trump says he and Vladimir Putin share a “good respect level on both sides” as he heads to Alaska for a summit with the Russian leader over Ukraine.
“He’s a smart guy. He’s been doing it for a long time, but so have I… We’re presidents. We get along. There’s a good respect level on both sides,” Trump tells reporters aboard Air Force Once during the flight to Anchorage.
Russia launched a ballistic missile into Ukraine’s Dnipropetrovsk region, injuring at least one person and causing a fire, the regional governor says.
The attack comes hours before a planned summit between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska to discuss a ceasefire deal for Ukraine.
More than 160 people have been killed during heavy rain and flooding in northwestern Pakistan over the last 24 hours, officials say.
A helicopter on a rescue mission in the flood-hit province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa crashed due to the bad weather, killing the five crew members.
Seven kilometers (4.3 miles) worth of Hamas tunnels in northern Gaza’s Beit Hanoun were sealed with concrete, the military says.
The IDF says the engineering effort took place over the past four weeks, amid an offensive against Hamas in the town.
Over 20,000 cubic meters of concrete were pumped into the Hamas tunnel network in Beit Hanoun, using a “dedicated system” that included a 4.5-kilometer-long pipeline running from the border fence near the community of Netiv Haasara to the “heart” of the underground passages, the IDF says.
“The operation was made possible thanks to precise engineering planning, combining advanced technological capabilities and innovative methods used for the first time, which led to the complete sealing of the tunnel,” the military says in a statement.
Simultaneously, the IDF says another 2.4 kilometers (1.5 miles) of tunnels in Beit Hanoun were blown up by combat engineers using standard demolition methods.
“The two combined efforts led to a significant blow to the Beit Hanoun Battalion and led to its operational defeat,” the army adds.
Sealing tunnels with concrete can be a cheaper and less risky alternative to blowing them up, although it takes longer to carry out.
Two people have been wounded in a shooting near a mosque in the Swedish town of Orebro, police say, with local media reporting one person was shot as he left the mosque.
Police provide no details about the circumstances of the shooting, but urge the public to stay away from the scene as they search for the shooter.
“We are currently actively pursuing the perpetrator or perpetrators,” police spokesman Anders Dahlman tells AFP.
“We are interviewing witnesses and carrying out our technical investigation,” he says.
A police statement online says they have opened a preliminary investigation into attempted murder.
The town of Orebro was home to a school shooting in February in which 11 people were killed, including the perpetrator.
Police strip-searched three female protesters who were arrested last night during a Tel Aviv demonstration for a hostage deal, Haaretz reports.
The women were arrested on suspicion of disorderly conduct, a charge that doesn’t typically lead to strip-searches, even though police have the authority to conduct them.
The women were arrested with two other men who were not strip-searched, Haaretz says.
The paper says police have been conducting strip searches on anti-government protesters with increasing frequency in recent months.
“During an illegal demonstration, five rioters were arrested for questioning. During the arrest, the detainees were searched according to procedure and in accordance with the authority granted to the police by law. Any other statement is untrue and undermines the work of the police,” the Israel Police says in a statement.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says it is important that Friday’s Russia-US summit in Alaska opens up a path towards a “just peace” as well as substantive three-way talks between the leaders of Ukraine, Russia and the United States.
“It is time to end the war, and the necessary steps must be taken by Russia. We are counting on America,” Zelensky writes on the Telegram messaging app.
I held a Staff meeting to discuss three key issues.
The front, particularly the Pokrovsk sector. We are countering the attempts of Russian forces to gain a foothold and increasing the pressure of our units on the occupier. We are succeeding. Units of the 79th and 82nd Air…
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) August 15, 2025
US President Donald Trump departs Washington aboard Air Force One to head to a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska for discussions about a possible ceasefire deal for Ukraine.
Trump is accompanied by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and CIA Director John Ratcliffe, as well as other top aides, the White House says.
“HIGH STAKES!!!” Trump wrote on his social media platform before leaving the White House for the trip.
French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou condemns an act of “antisemitic hatred” after a memorial tree planted in tribute to a young French Jewish man tortured to death in 2006 was cut down outside Paris.
On January 20, 2006, 23-year-old Ilan Halimi was kidnapped by a gang of youths and tortured in a housing estate in the Paris suburb of Bagneux. Found three weeks later, he died on the way to the hospital.
An olive tree, planted in 2011 in Halimi’s memory, was cut down, probably with a chainsaw, overnight between Wednesday and Thursday in the northern Paris suburb of Epinay-sur-Seine, officials say.
The move has stoked fresh concerns about an increase in antisemitic acts and hate crimes against Jewish people in France.
“The tree for Ilan Halimi, a living bulwark against oblivion, has been cut down by antisemitic hatred,” Bayrou says on X.
“No crime can eradicate memory. The never-ending fight against the deadly poison of hatred is our primary duty,” he adds.
Herve Chevreau, the mayor of Epinay-sur-Seine, says he has filed a complaint.
Paris police chief Laurent Nunez condemns the “despicable act,” and vows that “everything will be done to find the perpetrators and bring them to justice.”
Halimi was lured by a 17-year-old girl to a housing estate basement in the suburbs, where he was attacked and subdued with ether.
Held prisoner for ransom by a gang that believed his family was rich because he was Jewish, Halimi was tortured for 24 days before he was found naked and handcuffed to a tree near a railway track on February 13, 2006.
Halimi’s kidnapping and murder stirred debate about antisemitism in France after police initially refused to consider it a hate crime, with tens of thousands taking to the street to demand justice.
Youssouf Fofana, the head of the gang, was sentenced to life in prison.
A memorial tree planted in his memory was previously chopped down in 2019.
Police arrested six people on suspicion of stabbing a young man in Eilat overnight, law enforcement officials say.
The victim was injured but still able to transport himself to a hospital to receive proper care.
Officers opened an investigation into the incident “following a report about a young man who came independently to receive medical treatment in Yoseftal Hospital, with signs of injury on his body as a result of a stabbing,” police say in a statement.
The suspects, among them four residents of Eilat, were brought to the Eilat Magistrate’s Court, where police will request to keep them in detention.
Israeli soccer fans held up a banner reading “Murderers since 1939” during a match against a Polish team last night, leading Polish fans to attack an Israeli fan bus following the game.
The “Murderers since 1939” banner was displayed prominently across a row of seats by fans of Israeli club Maccabi Haifa during their Europa Conference League match against Raków Częstochowa, which was played in Debrecen, Hungary for security reasons.
Kibice z Izraela wywiesili transparent "Mordercy od 1939 roku" podczas meczu Raków Częstochowa z Maccabi Hajfa w trzeciej rundzie eliminacji do Ligi Konferencji.
Szanowna Ambasado @IsraelinPoland czy będzie reakcja? CC: @MSZ_RP pic.twitter.com/D2QVbELOGk— August Żywczyk (@august_zywczyk) August 14, 2025
Following the match, in which Maccabi Haifa lost 2:0, a group of Raków Częstochowa fans threw stones at an Israeli fan bus, in an incident caught on video.
There are no reports of injuries as a result of the violence.
זה האוטובוס של אוהדי מכבי חיפה אחרי המשחק מול ראקוב. באמצע כביש מהיר עקפו אותם חבורה של אוהדים פולנים שעקבו אחריהם עוד מתחנת דלק בה עצרו, והתחילו לזרוק אבנים על האוטובוס ולנסות לפגוע בהם. הם הצליחו לברוח לבסוף, ובנס אף אחד לא נפגע, אבל זה אירוע קשה שהיה יכול להיגמר אחרת pic.twitter.com/Ovu2K7FUoX
— Yotam Koren (@yotam_koren) August 15, 2025
According to Channel 13, the banner displayed by Maccabi Haifa fans was a response to the banner held up by Polish soccer fans at a match the previous week, which read “Israel is murdering and the world is silent,” in reference to the war in Gaza.
The “Murderers since 1939” banner has caused outrage in Poland, with the country’s President Karol Nawrocki writing on X that the “scandalous banner…insults the memory of Polish citizens — victims of World War Two, including 3 million Jews.”
Polish Interior Minister Marcin Kierwinski says the banner was a “scandalous distortion of Polish history” on behalf of the “Israeli hooligans.”
The Israeli Embassy in Warsaw also condemns the banner, writing on X that the “shameful incidents do not reflect the spirit of the majority of Israeli fans.”
Hezbollah leader: Lebanese government bears responsibility for any internal unrest in Lebanon.
Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem condemns the Lebanese government’s decision to disarm Hezbollah, claiming that doing so will undermine the country’s national security.
He warns that should Hezbollah’s weapons be removed, the Lebanese government will be responsible for any internal unrest or fighting that could erupt as a result of the decision.
Qassem further threatens that “There will be no life in Lebanon” if the government were to try taking the terror group’s weapons by force.
He says Hezbollah and the Amal movement, its Shi’ite Muslim ally, have decided to delay any street protests against the US-backed disarmament plan supported by Beirut, as they still see room for dialogue with the Lebanese government. But he says any future protests could reach the US Embassy.
Germany calls on the Israeli government to stop settlement construction in the West Bank after far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said work would start on a plan for thousands of homes in a contentious area of the West Bank.
Germany “firmly rejects the Israeli government’s announcements regarding the approval of thousands of new housing units in Israeli settlements in the West Bank,” says a foreign ministry spokesperson in a statement.
Plans for the E1 settlement project and the expansion of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement would further restrict the mobility of the Palestinian population in the West Bank by splitting it in half and cutting the area off from East Jerusalem, says the spokesperson.
Smotrich announced on Thursday that work would start on the long-delayed settlement, a move that he said “buries the idea of a Palestinian state.”
Germany has repeatedly warned the Israeli government to stop settlement construction in the West Bank, which violates international law and UN Security Council resolutions.
Such moves complicate steps towards a negotiated two-state solution, says the spokesperson.
Over 310 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered the Gaza Strip yesterday through the Kerem Shalom and Zikim crossings, Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities (COGAT) says.
According to COGAT, more than 390 trucks worth of aid were also collected by the United Nations and other international organizations from the Gaza side of the crossings yesterday to be distributed.
Another 119 pallets of aid — about 4-6 trucks worth — were airdropped by Jordan, the UAE, Germany, Belgium, Italy, and France in Gaza yesterday, according to the IDF.
The UN has said 600 trucks of aid need to be distributed each day in order to properly feed the Strip’s roughly two million people.
Additionally, COGAT says that “tankers of UN fuel entered for the operation of essential humanitarian systems” yesterday. It also says it facilitated the entry and exit of aid workers rotating in and out of Gaza.
A “key terrorist” in Hamas’s Rafah Brigade was killed in an airstrike in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis last week, the military announces.
According to the IDF, the strike on August 9 killed Nasser Musa, who served as the head of Hamas’s “control department.”
As part of his role, the military says Musa was responsible for the “readiness and exercises of the terrorists in the brigade.” He held additional roles in the Rafah Brigade, including in the unit’s intelligence and surveillance arrays, the IDF says.
According to the military, Musa was a close associate of Muhammad Shabana, the commander of the Rafah Brigade, who was killed alongside top Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar in May.
Meanwhile, the IDF says fighter jets hit a building in Khan Younis yesterday that was used by terror operatives to store rockets. The IDF publishes footage of the strike.
פעילות כוחות צה״ל ברצועת עזה: חוסל מחבל מרכזי בחטיבת רפיח של ארגון הטרור חמאס
צה״ל ושב"כ תקפו וחיסלו ב-9 באוגוסט 2025 במרחב חאן יונס, בהובלת פיקוד הדרום, את נאצר מוסא, מחבל מרכזי בחטיבת רפיח ששימש כראש מחלקת הבקרה הצבאית של ארגון הטרור חמאס.
המחבל היה אחראי על כשירות ואימוני… pic.twitter.com/MBHz457lOy
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) August 15, 2025
Ground operations also continue in Gaza. The IDF says the 36th Division killed a cell of operatives in Khan Younis; the Gaza Division destroyed dozens of military infrastructures and directed strikes on operatives in Rafah; and the 99th Division continued defensive operations in the Strip’s north, during which several operatives were killed and tunnel shafts were destroyed.
Turkish police have detained 40 people, including the mayor of Istanbul’s central Beyoglu district, as part of a corruption investigation, state broadcaster TRT Haber says, the latest wave in a crackdown on the opposition.
Beyoglu Mayor Inan Guney from the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) is the 16th mayor to have been taken into custody in the crackdown, in which a total of more than 500 people have been detained in less than a year.
Among those currently in prison is Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu, President Tayyip Erdogan’s main political rival, who is being investigated on charges of corruption and links to terrorism.
The CHP denies the charges and calls them an attempt to eliminate a democratic alternative, a charge the government rejects.
TRT Haber says those held in the latest operation are suspected of involvement in fraudulent activities at companies linked to the Istanbul municipality. Arrest warrants were issued for a total of 44 people, including the 40 detained, it says.
The Ukrainian military, in a statement, says it struck the port of Olya in Russia’s Astrakhan region yesterday, hitting a ship with drone parts and ammunition from Iran.
The statement added that Russia uses the port as an important logistical hub for the supply of military goods from Iran.
Train service across central Israel has been partially suspended this morning after a freight train caused extensive damage to several hundred meters of electric cable infrastructure overnight.
In an update, Israel Railways says all service between Tel Aviv Ha’Hagana and Lod has been canceled, as have trains between Ha’Hagana and Ben Gurion Airport.
Trains are operating as normal between Jerusalem and Ben Gurion Airport, as well as from other Tel Aviv stations, it says.
Israel Railways does not say how long it expects the repairs to take, but reports suggest that train service could be impacted for several days.
Three of Israel’s research universities are among the top 100 in the world, according to the 2025 Shanghai Ranking, released early this morning.
The three universities are the Weizmann Institute of Science, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.
All three were included in last year’s list as well, and all three have dropped in the rankings.
The Weizmann Institute of Science is ranked 71st in the world, down from 69th place in 2024, while the Hebrew University of Jerusalem takes 88th place, down from 81st last year. The Technion drops the furthest of the three in comparison to last year, moving from spot 85 in 2024 to 97 in 2025.
The top of the Shanghai Ranking remains unchanged from last year, with Harvard University taking first place, followed by Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Fourth place is awarded to the University of Cambridge, and in fifth is the University of California, Berkeley.
The Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) announces that it will screen a documentary about the October 7 onslaught, reversing a decision announced earlier this week to cancel the event over what it claimed were copyright concerns stemming from the fact that the filmmakers did not receive permission from the Hamas terrorists whose clips are featured in the film.
The documentary in question is “The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue,” which tells the story of Maj. Gen. (res.) Noam Tibon, who set out to save his son, journalist Amir Tibon, and his son’s family as they were attacked by Hamas-led terrorists at their home on Kibbutz Nahal Oz near the Gaza border. The film was created by Canadian filmmaker Barry Avrich.
In a joint statement announcing the decision to screen the film after all, TIFF CEO Cameron Baily and Avrich say they had “heard the pain and frustration expressed by the public” following the initial decision to scrap the film.
“We have worked together to find a resolution to satisfy important safety, legal, and programming concerns. We are pleased to share that The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue will be an official TIFF selection at the festival this year, where we believe it will contribute to the vital conversations that film is meant to inspire,” the statement continues.
“In this case, TIFF’s communication around its requirements did not clearly articulate the concerns and roadblocks that arose and for that, we are sorry,” it adds.
Please see the following statement from TIFF and the Filmmaker regarding The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue. pic.twitter.com/e3Peik2es1
— TIFF (@TIFF_NET) August 15, 2025
Settlers reportedly hurled Molotov cocktails at homes, vehicles and property in the Palestinian village of Atara in the central West Bank.
It is the night’s second reported settler attack, coming shortly after another one in the southern West Bank village of Susya that left several people injured.
مستوطنون يهاجمون المنازل ويحرقون مركبة في قرية عطارة شمال رام الله pic.twitter.com/nnC8lGEmz4
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) August 14, 2025
Several Palestinians were injured in an overnight reported attack by Israeli settlers in the southern West Bank village of Susya.
Footage from the scene showed a bloodied man before he was reportedly evacuated to the hospital along with his wife, who was also wounded in the attack.
There are no reports of arrests, which are highly rare in such incidents of settler violence that have been taking place on a near-daily basis throughout the West Bank.
A Massachusetts man has been sentenced to more than two years in prison after he threatened to bomb synagogues and kill Jewish children in a series of calls he placed to two local houses of worship and the Israeli consulate in Boston after Israel and Hamas went to war in 2023.
John Reardon, 60, has been sentenced by US District Judge Julia Kobick in Boston to 26 months in custody after pleading guilty in November to charges related to what prosecutors said were dozens of violent and antisemitic calls and voicemails he placed to Jewish institutions beginning on October 7, 2023.
Reardon’s attorney did not respond to a request for comment. But in court papers, she argued for a nine-month sentence, saying mental health issues led Reardon to commit a crime that was “terrifying, deeply hurtful, and will cause lasting fear in the victims.”
He was charged in January 2024, as the US Department of Justice began to warn of a growing number of antisemitic threats nationally following the onset of the war.
Prosecutors in court papers said Reardon in a voicemail left with a synagogue in Attleboro, Massachusetts, on January 25, 2024, said that “you do realize that by supporting genocide, that means it’s OK for people to commit genocide against you.”
Prosecutors said Reardon also threatened to bomb Jewish places of worship and said that by “supporting the killing of innocent little children, that means it’s OK to kill your children.”
Prosecutors said he then called another synagogue in Sharon, Massachusetts, and left a threatening voicemail. He also called the Israeli consulate in Boston 98 times over several months, saying in one call it was “time to prepare the furnaces again,” according to prosecutors, a reference to the Nazis’ systematic extermination of Jews in the World War II Holocaust.
