Aug. 19: White House says US ‘continuing to discuss’ truce proposal accepted by Hamas

Hostage forum says it’s changing format of next week’s protest in effort to push for comprehensive deal

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum announces it is changing the format of nationwide protest events originally planned for next Sunday, following reports of ongoing negotiations for a comprehensive hostage-release deal.

Instead of holding a mass rally in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square, the forum says it will organize events across the country calling for an immediate agreement, with the large demonstration postponed to an undisclosed later date. The weekly Saturday night rally in Tel Aviv will still proceed as planned.

In a statement addressed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the forum says, “This is the last chance to sign an agreement for the return of the 50 hostages,” while expressing frustration that a security cabinet meeting has yet to be called this week on the matter.

The announcement comes after a day of massive protests this past Sunday, which some estimates put at over one million participants nationwide, including more than 500,000 in Tel Aviv alone. The rallies were accompanied by strikes at hundreds of local authorities, businesses, universities, and tech companies, though Israel’s central labor union, the Histadrut, did not join.

The protests were sparked by the cabinet’s recent decision to move forward with plans to conquer Gaza City, despite warnings from top security officials that such an operation could endanger the remaining hostages held by Hamas. The forum had called the previous demonstrations and strikes to pressure the government to end the war in exchange for the release of hostages.

Israeli munition from 12-day war explodes in Iran, reportedly killing one

Munition left from Israel’s war with Iran earlier this year exploded on Tuesday in the Islamic Republic’s west, killing one person, state media says.

Official news agency IRNA says that “unexploded ordnance of the Zionist regime” detonated near the city of Beyranshahr, in Lorestan province of western Iran.

“The incident left one person dead and nine people injured,” it adds, quoting a Revolutionary Guards statement.

The 12 days of fighting in June saw Israel bomb Iranian nuclear and military sites as well as residential areas, killing more than 1,000 people, including senior commanders and nuclear scientists.

Iran retaliated with missile and drone attacks that killed dozens in Israel.

The United States, which briefly joined the war by striking Iranian nuclear sites, announced a halt in fighting on June 24.

While the hostilities ended, there was no agreement formalizing the ceasefire.

Iranian officials have since maintained that Tehran remains ready in case another confrontation breaks out with its sworn enemy, Israel.

On Sunday, Yahya Rahim Safavi, a military adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told local media the country was “preparing plans for the worst-case scenario.”

France calls Netanyahu antisemitism claim ‘abject’

France slams as “abject” and “erroneous” an accusation from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that President Emmanuel Macron’s move to recognize a Palestinian state was fueling antisemitism in his country.

France “protects and will always protect its Jewish citizens,” Macron’s office says, adding that a letter from Netanyahu containing his allegation “will not go unanswered.”

“This is a time for seriousness and responsibility, not for conflation and manipulation,” the French presidency adds.

“Violence against the [French] Jewish community is intolerable,” the French presidency says.

“That is why, beyond criminal convictions, the president has systematically required all his governments since 2017 — and even more so since the terrorist attacks of October 7, 2023 — to show the strongest action against perpetrators of antisemitic acts,” it says.

Macron’s minister for Europe, Benjamin Haddad, separately says in reaction to Netanyahu’s letter that France has “no lessons to learn in the fight against antisemitism.”

The issue “which is poisoning our European societies” must not be “exploited,” Haddad adds.

France is home to Europe’s biggest Jewish community.

Reported antisemitic acts in France surged from 436 in 2022 to 1,676 in 2023, before dipping to 1,570 last year, according to the interior ministry.

‘An unquantifiable legacy’: Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s family holds service marking year since his murder

The family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin is holding a memorial service in Jerusalem to mark the one-year Hebrew calendar anniversary of his murder in Hamas captivity, along with five other hostages.

“Sometimes I look deep into my own eyes. I unzip them — my eyes — and I can hear you. And I know you’re here inside,” says Hersh’s mother, Rachel, gesturing toward her heart during prepared remarks at the gathering. “Even though I can’t see you with my eyes — that are your eyes, that are my eyes. Like the too-big ocean that I cannot always see. But there is no doubt that it is there.”

“In your 23 years and 11 months, you always prioritized things that can’t be quantified. Smiling and making other people smile, knowledge, experiences, relationships, and justice. And the legacy you have already left from your 23 years and 11 months is greater than any of those legacies that could be quantified,” says Hersh’s father, Jon.

ג'ון פולין מספר עכשיו באזכרה של הירש: 'לפני כמה שבועות הלכתי עם בתי ברחוב בירושלים, כשניגש אלינו בחור נחמד. 'אבא של הירש, אפשר להראות לך משהו?' הוא הראה לנו את הרקע של הטלפון שלו – תמונה של הירש. "בכל בוקר, הדבר הראשון שאני רואה הוא את הירש מביט בי. ואני שואל את עצמי, מה אני יכול… pic.twitter.com/HdrqNbIbIv

— Akiva Novick (@akivanovick) August 19, 2025

Israeli Druze leader meets US envoy Barrack in Paris, urging him to protect his brethren in Syria

Israeli Druze leader Sheikh Muafak Tarif meets in Paris with US special envoy for Syria Tom Barrack.

In a statement on the meeting, Tarif says he urged the US envoy to ensure the implementation of the ceasefire in southern Syria in addition to urging him to open a humanitarian corridor to the predominantly Druze area of Sweida, there, which he says is under siege and enduring shortages in aid.

Today I had a warm and informative meeting with Israeli Druze spiritual leader Sheikh Muwaffaq Tarif and his team. We discussed the situation in Suwayda and how to bring together the interests of all parties, de-escalate tensions, and build understanding. pic.twitter.com/A7htbbSl2r

— Ambassador Tom Barrack (@USAMBTurkiye) August 19, 2025

Guard who Likud MK likened to ‘Judenrat’ is grandson of Holocaust survivor, has served 400 days in reserve duty since Oct. 7

MK Tally Gotliv arrives for a court hearing concerning Jonatan Urich in Lod on August 19, 2025. (Jonathan Shaul/Flash90)

The mother of the security guard, who Likud MK Tally Gotliv compared to the Holocaust-era “Judenrat” today, calls on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to condemn her comments, and expresses astonishment as to how such remarks could be uttered.

The mother, whose name is given as Chani, tells Channel 12 News in an interview that her son is a combat soldier and deputy company commander in the IDF reserves and has served some 400 days in IDF reserve duty since the war with Hamas began following the October 7 atrocities.

Chani also notes that her mother, his grandmother, was a Holocaust survivor. And she adds that she has four sons and a son-in-law, and that at any given time, at least one of them is serving in IDF reserve duty.

“I really think that the leadership needs to get a grip on itself,” she said, adding that “the nation deserves better.”

She said that her mother, a Holocaust survivor, had been very happy to live in the Jewish state and had always been proud of her grandsons.

“How can you say something like this?” she asked of Gotliv’s comments.

Chani, the mother of a court security guard who Likud MK Tally Gotliv compared to the Holocaust-era “Judenrat,” in a Channel 12 interview, August 19, 2025 (Channel 12 screenshot)

“I very much expect people to condemn this, especially Bibi [Netanyahu], who is prime minister and head of the Likud,” she continued, adding that Netanyahu knows the family personally.

Gotliv was forcibly removed by the security guard on a judge’s order after she repeatedly interrupted a court hearing and called the guard “an animal” on her way out.

When he responded that he was doing his job, Gotliv retorted that the Judenraete (Jewish councils), which the Nazis established and forced to implement their policies, had done the same.

White House says it’s discussing ceasefire proposal accepted by Hamas

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says that the US “continues to discuss” the Arab mediators’ ceasefire proposal that was accepted yesterday by Hamas.

“I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Hamas accepted this proposal after the president of the United States posted a very strong statement about this conflict on Truth Social yesterday,” Leavitt says during a press briefing, referring to US President Donald Trump’s assertion that all of the hostages will only be released once Hamas has been destroyed.

However, an Arab diplomat tells The Times of Israel that Hamas had already approved the proposal by the time Trump issued his tweet.

Katz meets with IDF brass to approve military’s plans for takeover of Gaza City

R-L: Defense Minister Israel Katz meets with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, Deputy Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Tamir Yadai, Operations Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Itzik Cohen, and Intelligence Directorate chief Maj. Gen. Shlomi Binder, in Katz's office in Tel Aviv, August 19, 2025. (Ariel Hermoni/Defense Ministry)

Defense Minister Israel Katz is meeting with IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir, other senior officers, and Shin Bet representatives to approve the military’s plans for the capture of Gaza City, his office says.

The meeting and the presentation of the army’s plans to Katz come despite Hamas saying yesterday that it had agreed to a ceasefire proposal. Should a hostage-ceasefire deal be reached, the plans to capture Gaza City are likely to be called off.

According to Israeli officials, the IDF’s plans to capture Gaza City involve first the establishment of humanitarian infrastructure in southern Gaza, including allowing tents and shelter equipment into the Strip in recent days.

The IDF will then issue evacuation warnings for the estimated one million Palestinians residing in Gaza City. Israeli officials have said that Palestinians will have until October 7, 2025, to evacuate Gaza City, which coincides with the second anniversary of Hamas’s attack on Israel.

Afterward, the IDF will then launch its ground offensive into Gaza City, including by placing a siege on the area to kill any remaining Hamas operatives.

The military is set to call up tens of thousands of reservists in the coming days ahead of the operation, though it is unclear how many of them would be deployed to Gaza, as military officials say many reservists will be swapping out standing army troops on other fronts.

Government-funded body listed as sponsor for anti-enlistment event in Bnei Brak

The Bnei Brak religious council, a taxpayer-funded government body, is listed as one of the backers of an upcoming anti-enlistment event in the central Israeli city scheduled for Thursday morning.

The event, which will take place at the city’s Yeshua L’yehuda yeshiva, will consist of ideological encouragement for “the holy and mighty yeshiva students in the face of the conscription decrees,” a promotion for the event states, using Biblical language to reference soldiers and other fighting men.

The religious councils are one of three organizations listed as backers of the event, which will feature several top Haredi rabbis, including former chief Sephardic rabbi and current Shas party spiritual leader Yitzhak Yosef, a staunch opponent of military service for yeshiva students.

Thursday’s event will be one of several held nationwide and across the Diaspora to protest the arrest and detention of yeshiva students who, obeying rabbinic orders, ignored IDF draft summonses and were declared evaders.

כזה עוד לא היה לנו: המועצה הדתית בבני ברק, גוף ממלכתי למי שלא זוכר, מממנת ומפיקה כנס מיוחד כנגד גזירת הגיוס???????? pic.twitter.com/lJ63dfNNaE

— אברהם פריינד (@avrahamFriend) August 19, 2025

‘Another terrorist’: Sara Netanyahu accused of racist dismissal of Arab customer service worker

Sara Netanyahu arrives for a court hearing at the Magistrate Court in Jerusalem, asking the court for a restraining order against activist Nava Rozolyo, March 25, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

An Arab Israeli college student suspected of spying for Iran told Shin Bet investigators that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s wife, Sara, called him a “terrorist” after he shared his name during a customer service call for the HOT Mobile phone company last year, according to notes from the interrogation obtained by The Times of Israel.

The Ben Gurion University student had recorded the call and had written about the interaction on his phone, leading interrogators to ask about it during their questioning.

The suspect recalled how, when he was working for HOT one Saturday last year, he answered a call from a customer, sharing his name and asking how he could assist.

Netanyahu could then be heard on the other end exasperatingly declaring, “Another terrorist is answering me.”

The suspect testified that he subsequently realized that he was the third Arab to receive a call from Netanyahu. It was a Saturday when companies are legally barred from requiring Jewish employees to work.

The suspect passed a polygraph, and the notes on the interrogation obtained by The Times of Israel indicated that the Shin Bet uncovered the recording of the call on his phone. The investigators also noted that the suspect was cooperating with authorities.

The suspect is accused of responding to an Iranian operative who reached out and asked him to carry out intelligence-finding missions in exchange for money. He is one of dozens of Israelis from various backgrounds who have been arrested on such charges since the outbreak of the Gaza war.

Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.

225 new immigrants en route to Israel from US on first Nefesh B’Nefesh charter flight since Oct. 7

Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer speaks at a Nefesh B'Nefesh ceremony for new immigrants at JFK Airport in New York, August 19, 2025 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

Immigration and Absorption Minister Ofir Sofer is joining 225 new immigrants moving to Israel on the first Nefesh B’Nefesh Aliyah charter flight since Hamas launched its war against Israel on October 7, 2023.

“Usually, during a war, people leave their country, but you are here coming,” Sofer says at a ceremony at JFK Airport in New York right before the immigrants board the plane.

More than 1,000 North American Jewish immigrants are expected to arrive in Israel in August, the highest monthly total since NBN was founded in 2002 to promote Aliyah, the organization says.

Included on the flight are 45 families with 125 children, as well as 10 single people. The youngest new immigrant is nine months old, and the oldest is 72 years old. The group includes five physicians and 19 other medical professionals.

NBN says it has brought a total of 2,358 immigrants since the beginning of 2025, and more than 7,000 since the October 7 attacks.

Overall, immigration to Israel has been on the decline since the war. Immigration numbers dropped by 30% in 2024 to 32,161, according to Immigration and Absorption Ministry data.

Wednesday’s flight, NBN’s 65th since it was founded, is the organization’s only group charter flight of 2025. Some 90,000 immigrants have made Aliyah with NBN in the past 23 years.

The flight is organized in cooperation with Israel’s immigration and Absorption Ministry, The Jewish Agency, and KKL-JNF.

Opposition leaders blast cabinet for cutting budget from key offices to fund Gaza aid

Opposition politicians denounce the government’s decision to approve a NIS 31 billion ($9 billion) increase to the 2025 state budget, including NIS 1.6 billion ($473 million) for humanitarian aid for Gaza.

“The government approved the transfer of NIS 1.6 billion to Gaza, despite the IDF’s warning that the vast majority of the ‘aid’ reaches Hamas,” tweets Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman. “The government is stealing from the citizens and paying taxes to Hamas.”

“The government’s decision to cut the health basket means both shame is dead, and sick people will die as well. Funding could come from closing 15 superfluous ministries and canceling coalition funds for corruption and draft dodgers,” declares Opposition Leader Yair Lapid. “Instead, the worst government in Israel’s history is cutting healthcare, education, and welfare. Disgraceful.”

Cabinet approves budget increase, including $473 million for Gaza aid

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government votes to approve an NIS 31 billion ($9 billion) increase to the 2025 state budget — NIS 1.6 billion ($473 million) of which will go toward humanitarian aid for Gaza.

According to public broadcaster Kan, the increase will primarily go toward defense spending and will be accompanied by cuts to ministerial budgets, angering some members of Netanyahu’s cabinet. The additional funds will still require the approval of the Knesset.

According to the Ynet news site, the ministries with already larger budgets will be the most influenced by the cuts, with the National Security Ministry set to face the biggest slash to its spending.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Education Minister Yoav Kisch said in a joint statement on Tuesday morning that they would oppose the budget proposal being presented to the government unless it included funding for security at educational institutions in the coming school year.

Speaking during today’s cabinet meeting, Kisch complained that while aid to Gaza is being increased, he has not received funds he requested for mental health assistance for students, telling Smotrich: “you prefer the children of Gaza over the children of Israel” and claiming that he is a “small man with a big ego, according to a transcript leaked to Hebrew media.

Ben Gvir also blasted Netanyahu during the meeting, saying that he is “the one responsible” for this “disgrace,” according to leaked transcripts.

In response to criticisms, Netanyahu insisted that “the money does not go to Hamas, but to the aid centers, to the residents of Gaza,” prompting Ben Gvir to ask “why prioritize the children of Gaza?”

Israeli military operations have collapsed just about all services in Gaza, and it is responsible under international law to facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid into the war zone.

In a statement responding to the criticism, Smotrich panned the minority of “populist ministers” who were more interested in “hurling personal insults and creating headlines,” while the majority of cabinet members showed national responsibility by passing the budget.

Welcoming UN decision to blacklist Hamas, Michal Herzog says terror group ‘used rape a weapon’

UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict Pramila Patten (left) meets with First Lady Michal Herzog (right) during her visit to Israel, January 2024. (President's Office)

First Lady Michal Herzog welcomes the United Nations’ decision to add Hamas to its official “blacklist” of countries and groups that commit sexual crimes in violent conflicts, calling the move “a long time coming.”

Herzog, who has been a leading voice in raising awareness of Hamas’s sexual violence since October 7, says the evidence has been clear for months. She points to an early 2024 report by the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict, Pramila Patten, that documented Hamas’s deliberate and systematic crimes.

“The world must understand: Hamas uses rape as a weapon,” Herzog says. “These atrocities — rape, gang rape, genital mutilation, sexual abuse in captivity — are not incidental. They are deliberate, premeditated and systematic tools of terror.”

Her comments come a week after UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres formally placed Hamas on the blacklist for the first time, while also warning that Israel itself could be added in the future if allegations of misconduct by its forces are substantiated.

IDF says it killed Hamas terrorist who took part in kidnapping of Yarden Bibas

Jihad Kamal Salem Najjar (left) and other Hamas terrorists abduct Yarden Bibas to Gaza after kidnapping him from his home in Nir Oz, a kibbutz in Israel near the Gaza border, on Oct. 7, 2023. His wife Shiri and son Ariel, 4, and baby Kfir, were also abducted. (AP Photo)

A Hamas terrorist who took part in the kidnapping of former hostage Yarden Bibas during the October 7 onslaught was killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier this month, the IDF and Shin Bet announce.

The strike on August 10 in Gaza killed Jihad Kamal Salem Najjar, who the military and Shin Bet say invaded Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023, and abducted Yarden Bibas.

Bibas was released from captivity in February. His wife, Shiri, and two young sons, Ariel and Kfir, were abducted by the Mujahideen Brigades terror group and murdered in captivity, before their bodies were returned to Israel.

Health Ministry says it has tracked 618 measles cases since outbreak began 3 months ago

A notice warning of measles is seen on a door in the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Mea Shearim in Jerusalem, July 31, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

The Health Ministry reports that 618 cases of measles have been diagnosed since the measles outbreak began in Israel about three months ago, including 236 active cases, with most hospitalized patients being unvaccinated children. Two unvaccinated infants with no underlying conditions have died from measles in the past week.

There are 21 patients now hospitalized, most of them children under the age of 6, along with one adult. Two patients are in intensive care, and one is connected to a life-support system.

The ministry also says that a measles patient traveled on public transportation on the Bnei Brak–Beit Shemesh bus line (line 681) during the contagious period of the disease.

On August 15, they took a bus from Bnei Brak to Beit Shemesh between 15:00–16:30, and on the following two days, they took the bus from Beit Shemesh to Bnei Brak between 23:30–00:45.

People who were near the measles patient at the above times and locations are advised to ensure that they are vaccinated according to the Ministry’s recommendations.

Measles is a highly contagious viral disease characterized by fever, malaise, a runny nose, and a rash. Infection can lead to dangerous complications such as blindness, pneumonia, brain swelling and death.

Vaccination status can be checked through the government personal portal using the digital vaccination record.

For assistance in checking the need for vaccination, people can contact the Kol HaBriut health hotline (5400*).

Huckabee spotlights plight of Nepalese hostage Bipin Joshi after meeting family

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee spotlights Hamas-held hostage Bipin Joshi in a video posted on X, after meeting with the Nepalese citizen’s family in Israel.

“He’s not Israeli. He’s not American. He’s from Nepal. And he just happened to be here a couple of weeks before October 7th,” Huckabee says.

Speaking of Joshi’s sister, 17-year-old Pushpa, and his mother Padma, Huckabee adds: “They haven’t heard from Bipin since he was taken hostage. They don’t know his condition. They just want their son, their brother, to come home.”

The two also met with President Isaac Herzog and Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar earlier this week.

“We will do everything possible for them to return,” Huckabee concludes.

On Sunday, Pushpa spoke at a protest in Jerusalem during a nationwide day of demonstrations, urging Israelis not to forget her brother once she and her mother return to Nepal.

Here are my thoughts after meeting with the family of Bipin Joshi, an innocent student who just happened to be in the way of Hamas on October 7th. pic.twitter.com/blkFYC7KIO

— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@USAmbIsrael) August 19, 2025

Court overturns ruling that lifted conditions on release of Qatargate suspect and PM aide

Jonatan Urich, who was arrested as part of the Qatargate investigation, arrives at a court hearing in Lod on August 19, 2025. (Jonathan Shaul/Flash90)

The Lod-Central District Court rules to extend the restrictive conditions on key Qatargate suspect Jonatan Urich until September 10, overturning a lower court decision.

Last week, the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court rejected the police request to extend restrictions on Urich, banning him from contacting other figures connected to the Qatargate affair, and anyone working in the Prime Minister’s Office, including Netanyahu himself.

Judge Amit Michles upholds the police appeal, however, saying that the lower court’s ruling was based on the issue of whether Urich could be considered as working in public service. Michles writes that this question can only be addressed by a court if and when an indictment is filed against him, and that it cannot be the basis for rejecting the police request to extend the restrictive conditions.

In addition to those conditions, Urich is also banned from leaving the country until September 12.

Dermer will reportedly meet Syrian FM, US envoy tonight in Paris

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer is scheduled to meet tonight in Paris with Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani and US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack to discuss security arrangements along the Israel-Syria border, Channel 12 reports, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

Barrack was in Lebanon yesterday, where he urged Israel to fulfill its commitments under the ceasefire that ended the recent war with Hezbollah. He reportedly traveled directly from Beirut to Paris.

Hostage’s father says IDF withholding videos of son in captivity

Yehuda Cohen, father of Israeli hostage Nimrod Cohen, during a rally calling for the release of hostages held captive since the October 7 onslaught, in Tel Aviv on December 28, 2024 (Jack GUEZ / AFP)

The father of hostage Nimrod Cohen says the IDF is refusing to release to his family videos that troops obtained of his son in captivity.

Yehuda Cohen tells the Ynet news site that the IDF allowed the family to watch the short clips several weeks ago and said it was looking into the possibility of releasing the videos to the public, but has yet to provide an update since.

“How long does it take to release a video of a few seconds? As his father, I have the right to receive any material about him, especially when it is material that does not endanger sources, and especially given how important public awareness of his condition is,” Cohen says.

He says he doesn’t know exactly when the videos were shot, but adds they’re from over a year ago.

“You see him in the video saying his name and that he is a resident of Rehovot and something along the lines of ‘It’s time to release us,’ Cohen recalls.

In Jerusalem, French bishops urge pilgrims to return to Holy Land

Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline (2R), Archbishop of Marseille and president of the Bishops' Conference of France, speaks during a press conference at the Latin Patriarchate church in Jerusalem's Old City on August 19, 2025. (Ahmad GHARABLI / AFP)

A senior French bishop calls for pilgrims to visit the Holy Land to show solidarity with struggling Christian communities in the region.

Pilgrims “should not only come here to deepen their faith and take some photos… but also to take an interest in the Christians and the other people who live here,” Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, president of the French Bishops’ Conference, tells reporters in Jerusalem.

The archbishop of the southern French city of Marseille makes his appeal at the end of a five-day solidarity visit to the Holy Land, accompanied by two other prelates from the French Bishops’ conference.

On Monday, the delegation visited Bethlehem, a town in the West Bank revered by Christians as the birthplace of Jesus but which has been largely abandoned by foreign visitors since the outbreak of the Gaza war.

“When we went to the Nativity Church, we were the only visitors there,” Aveline notes.

Speaking about holy sites within Israel and East Jerusalem, he said that Christians “should understand that there are Christians in this land who cannot make the same pilgrimage, because they are not granted permits to move from one area to the other.”

Christian Palestinians from the Israeli-controlled West Bank require authorization from Israeli security forces to visit holy sites within Israel and East Jerusalem.

On Sunday, the cardinal celebrated mass in Taybeh, a Christian village in the West Bank that has faced repeated assaults by Israeli settlers in recent months.

In early July, the village was hit by an arson attack in the area of the ruins of a Byzantine-era church.

The cardinal also addresses relations between Christians and Jews, saying that “our bonds with the Jews are unbreakable” and warning against the “alarming rise of antisemitism in Europe.”

But he also laments that “every criticism of the State of Israel is immediately portrayed as antisemitism.”

“Therefore, we need dialogue, and the… will to tell the truth without harming anyone’s dignity,” he adds.

Aveline says that he spoke with Father Gabriel Romanelli, the parish priest of the Holy Family Catholic church in Gaza — the territory’s only Catholic church, which was damaged in a deadly Israeli strike last month.

Romanelli was lightly injured in the strike.

“He described the situation there as very uncertain,” Aveline recalls, “but I was very impressed with his inner strength.”

UN claims Israel ordering Gazans to evacuate to areas that are still under bombardment

The United Nations takes aim at Israel on Tuesday for its months-long block on bringing tents into the Gaza Strip, despite continual displacement orders issued to civilians in the devastated territory.

Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA, says shelter items had been banned from entering Gaza for about five months — a period when more than 700,000 people had been displaced or re-displaced.

Israel announced on Sunday that it was renewing the supply of tents and shelter equipment to Gaza, ahead of plans by the military to evacuate the Palestinian civilian population of Gaza City.

“They may have been provided with a tent, and then they are displaced again and they have no possibility of taking the tent with them,” Laerke tells a press briefing in Geneva.

He says the Israelis could classify tents as “dual use” because they considered tent poles to have a potential military purpose.

Laerke says the evacuation order placed over Gaza City on Saturday had not changed the situation on the ground, and tents were still not being allowed into the territory.

Separately, the UN human rights office accused Israel of sending Palestinians to areas where strikes were continuing.

Spokesman Thameen Al-Kheetan says “hundreds of thousands” are being told to go south to Al-Mawasi, which he said is still under bombardment.

He says Palestinians in Al-Mawasi had “little or no access to essential services and supplies, including food, water, electricity and tents.”

Israel says it takes measures to avoid harming civilians, whereas Hamas operatives hide among them.

Netanyahu sending scathing letters to leaders of countries that plan to recognize Palestine

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu upbraided French President Emmanuel Macron in a letter seen by AFP, blaming the French leader’s move to recognize a Palestinian state for fueling antisemitism.

“Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on this antisemitic fire. It is not diplomacy, it is appeasement. It rewards Hamas terror, hardens Hamas’s refusal to free the hostages, emboldens those who menace French Jews and encourages the Jew-hatred now stalking your streets,” Netanyahu writes in the letter.

Sky News revealed earlier today that Netanyahu sent a similar letter to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, indicating that he’s sending them to the leaders of all countries that announced plans to recognize a Palestinian state next month.

Despite ‘senior Israeli official’s’ dismissal, Jerusalem said reviewing proposal Hamas okayed yesterday

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu speaks at a Newsmax event in Jerusalem, on August 13, 2025. (Shalev Shalom/POOL)

Even though the Prime Minister’s Office issued an anonymous statement to reporters saying that Israel is only interested in a deal that releases all 50 hostages at once, two Israeli officials say that Jerusalem is studying the Arab mediators’ proposal for a phased hostage release that Hamas accepted yesterday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to convene discussions about the ceasefire proposal soon, the two Israeli officials say.

A response is expected in the coming two days, says a Palestinian source close to the talks.

Uzbek cleric goes on trial on charges of religious extremism, hatred against Israel

A prominent independent Muslim Uzbek cleric went on trial today in Tashkent on charges of promoting extremism and inciting hatred against Israel, in one of the highest-profile cases regarding religious practices in recent years.

Alisher Tursunov, widely known as Mubashshir Ahmad, faces charges of inciting religious hatred, distribution of materials that threaten public order and illegal distribution of materials with religious content. In total, the charges carry a penalty of five-to-eight years in prison.

Tursunov, 51, ran a popular religious media project, Azon.uz, which had some 1.2 million subscribers on YouTube before he shut it down in 2023 under threat of legal punishment. He subsequently moved to Turkey, where he was arrested and extradited to Uzbekistan in May.

The charges stem from his work on the Azon.uz project as well as posts the cleric made on social media, according to his lawyer. He has pleaded not guilty to the charges, local media reported.

Mubashshir Ahmad Istanbulda qo‘lga olindi

???? https://t.co/lb4DGrKce3 pic.twitter.com/XWqWSvmY2w

— Kun.uz (@KunUzNews) May 12, 2025

In a post on his Telegram channel in April, Tursunov spoke out in favor of a fatwa issued by the International Union of Muslim Scholars, a Qatar-based group, advocating for jihad against Israel over “the bloodshed in Gaza.”

“I would ask our government to listen to these calls,” Tursunov said. “We are all Muslims, including leaders on top, and we should follow the fatwa issued to Muslims.”

Uzbekistan, a landlocked, majority Muslim country in Central Asia home to some 38 million people, has had diplomatic relations with Israel since soon after the fall of the Soviet Union.

Islam Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan as president from 1991 until his death in 2016, was widely criticised for cracking down on Muslims under the pretext of fighting religious fundamentalism and terrorism.

Karimov’s successor, Shavkat Mirziyoyev, initially relaxed strict religious restrictions, but in recent years has instituted curbs on religious freedom, according to Human Rights Watch.

Over 180 tons of aid dropped into Gaza

Aircraft from Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Indonesia airdropped 185 pallets of humanitarian aid in the Gaza Strip today, the IDF says.

Each pallet contains around one ton of food. The 185 pallets amounts to roughly six to nine trucks-worth.

Indonesia, the country with the largest Muslim population in the world, does not have relations with Israel.

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.

Hostage’s mother: Netanyahu recalled Israeli negotiators from Doha, leaving my son behind in Gaza

Einav Zangauker speaks to a mass rally in Tel Aviv calling for a deal to release the hostages on August 17, 2025 (Paulina Patimer/ Hostages Family Forum)

The mother of hostage Matan Zangauker says Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chose to blow up hostage negotiations last month due to his personal political considerations at a point when a deal was on the brink of being signed.

“The public needs to know the truth: about a month ago, we were closer than ever to signing a deal. Just like the last agreement that the Israeli government blew up before it reached the second phase, this time too, Netanyahu calculated his political considerations and decided to blow it up,” Einav Zangauker says in a statement to reporters after leaving a briefing for hostage families on the status of efforts to release their loved ones at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem.

“While the negotiation teams returned to their homes, my Matan and other hostages were left behind,” she laments, adding that Netanyahu continues to set “impossible conditions” that prevent a deal from being reached.

Netanyahu announced the recalling of Israel’s negotiators last month only after US special envoy Steve Witkoff did the same, rejecting the latest response issued by Hamas, which added new conditions for a deal.

Arab diplomats at the time acknowledged to The Times of Israel that Hamas’s response took the sides backward in talks. However, they argued that the gaps between the sides were still bridgeable and were surprised by the US and Israeli decisions to blow up the talks.

Over the past week, Egypt and Qatar worked to coax Hamas into accepting a proposal that is almost identical to the one that was being discussed in Doha before the talks collapsed.

The Arab mediators are now waiting for Israel’s response to the proposal, though, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office has indicated it is no longer interested in a phased release of Israel’s hostages as envisioned by the deal on the table.

Qatar: Proposal accepted by Hamas ‘includes clear path to permanent ceasefire’

Qatar foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari gives a press conference in Doha on December 3, 2024. (Screen capture/X)

Qatari foreign ministry spokesperson Majed al-Ansari says the Arab mediators’ proposal accepted by Hamas yesterday “includes a clear path to a permanent ceasefire, and we consider it the best that can be offered under the present circumstances.”

Israel is framing the offer as a partial deal proposal, as it will only release roughly half of the remaining hostages during an initial 60-day truce. However, the deal envisions the second half being released if the sides can reach an agreement on the terms of a permanent ceasefire.

After backing and even leading this approach for over a year, Netanyahu has shifted to opposing the phased framework over the past several weeks, instead demanding a comprehensive deal that sees all of the hostages released in one batch in exchange for an end to the war.

Hamas has long offered this trade, but Netanyahu is also attaching a series of conditions that the terror group is refusing, such as the disarmament of Hamas, the demilitarization of the Gaza Strip, overall Israeli security control of the enclave and the governance of the Strip by a body that is not Hamas or the PA.

Ansari confirms that Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Abdulrahman al-Thani joined the talks in Egypt on Monday in what led to Hamas’s positive response to the mediators’ proposal — one that Arab officials told The Times of Israel yesterday is nearly identical to the one submitted by US special envoy Steve Witkoff in May.

“The atmosphere surrounding the talks is positive,” Ansari says during a press conference.

“We hope to reach an agreement as soon as possible, and if an understanding is reached, it must be implemented immediately without delay,” he adds.

EU ‘appalled’ by Israeli demolition of EU- and French-funded school in West Bank

The European Union is “appalled” by Israel’s demolition of a school under construction in al-Aqaba, a village in the northern West Bank, which was funded by the EU and France, an EU spokesperson says in a statement.

The school was intended to serve hundreds of Palestinian students from multiple communities, the spokesperson added.

“The EU expects its investments in support of the Palestinian people to be protected from damage and destruction by Israel, in accordance with international law,” the statement continues.

France has also condemned the demolition, stating it is “holding the Israeli authorities to account for this action.”

In scathing letter, Netanyahu gives Australian PM until Rosh Hashanah to act against antisemitism

Left to right: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the opening ceremony of the Knesset Museum in Jerusalem, August 11, 2025. (Maayan Toaf/GPO); Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks during a press conference in Canberra on August 11, 2025. (Hilary Wardhaugh / AFP)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu penned a scathing letter to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Sunday in which the Israeli premier claims the latter’s decision to recognize a Palestinian state has added fuel to an already large fire of antisemitism spreading across the country.

Sky News obtained a copy of the letter, which reads as follows:

“I am concerned with the alarming rise of antisemitism in Australia and the lack of decisive action by your government to confront it.

“Throughout the past year, antisemitism has scarred Australian cities. Since your public statements signaling recognition of a Palestinian state, it has intensified.

“Following Hamas’s savage attack on the people of Israel on October 7, 2025, pro-Hamas extremists and left-wing radicals began a campaign of intimidation, vandalism and violence against Jews across the free world. In Australia, that campaign has intensified under your watch. In June, vandals defaced a historic Melbourne synagogue with graffiti praising Iran and calling to “Free Palestine.”

“In July, arsonists targeted the East Melbourne Hebrew Congregation during Shabbat dinner, forcing twenty worshippers to flee for their lives. That same night, masked rioters stormed an Israeli-owned restaurant in central Melbourne, destroying property, hurling furniture and shouting “Death to the IDF.” These are not isolated incidents. This is an epidemic.

“Your call for a Palestinian state pours fuel on this antisemitic fire. It is not diplomacy, it is appeasement. It rewards Hamas terror, hardens Hamas’s refusal to free the hostages, emboldens those who menace Australian Jews and encourages the Jew hatred now stalking your streets.

“As President Trump has shown, antisemitism can and must be confronted. The President is protecting the civil rights of American Jews, enforcing the law, protecting public order and prosecuting antisemitic crimes. He has also deported Hamas sympathizers and revoked the visas of foreign students who incite violence against Jews.

“Prime Minister, antisemitism is a cancer. It spreads when leaders stay silent. It retreats when leaders act. I call upon you to replace weakness with action, appeasement with resolve, and to do so by a clear date: the Jewish New Year, September 23, 2025.

“History will not forgive hesitation. It will honor action.”

Gafni: Smotrich cutting funds for Haredim while leaving budget for settlements untouched

MK Moshe Gafni, chairman of the ultra-Orthodox Degel HaTorah party, slams Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich after details of a contentious telephone call between the two are leaked to the press.

In the call, Gafni, who until recently served as chair of the Knesset Finance Committee, accused Smotrich of collaborating with the legal system to cut the ultra-Orthodox community’s budgets, prompting the minister to hit back that he is “not willing to work under threats,” the Ynet news site reported.

“Don’t talk to me about distress while we are dealing with your stupid remarks against military conscription and (my national religious) community is filling the cemeteries,” Smotrich declared, referring to ultra-Orthodox demands that Haredi yeshiva students be exempted from military service.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is set to approve an NIS 31 billion ($9 billion) increase to the 2025 state budget today. According to the Kan public broadcaster, an increase in defense spending will be coupled with across-the-board cuts to ministerial budgets (save for the Defense Ministry). Included in these cuts are 481 million shekels ($142 million) in taxpayer money set aside for Haredi schools’ eventual inclusion in the government’s New Horizon program, which funds work in small groups between teachers and pupils and bumps up teacher salaries, among other initiatives.

The program is currently restricted to state schools and does not apply to independent Haredi institutions, which do not teach secular subjects. The money is currently frozen until it can eventually be allocated.

A statement attributed to “Gafni’s associates” released by the MK’s spokesman following the Ynet report complains that it took “less than three minutes” following the end of the call for Smotrich to “leak parts of the conversation to the media” in a way that “cynically” characterized their disagreement on the costs of the ongoing war in Gaza.

According to the statement, during the call, Gafni told Smotrich that “you never take or cut funds from the national religious education budgets or from the Settlement Ministry — only from Haredi education. Only from Haredi teachers are you cutting endlessly. I will not agree to this.”

In a statement earlier this afternoon, Gafni appeared to threaten to vote in the Knesset against increases to the defense budget.

Hamas weapons will be deposited with Egypt in Cairo’s reported plan to disarm group

Egypt is reportedly proposing that Hamas’s weaponry be transferred over to Cairo for an unspecified amount of time as part of efforts to disarm the terror group during post-war reconstruction of the Gaza Strip.

The initiative will also be coupled with Egypt’s public plan for a temporary government of Palestinian technocrats running the strip for several years after the war under the supervision of the Palestinian Authority, according to the Kan public broadcaster.

While Hamas has largely agreed to the latter idea, as it has expressed willingness to cede control of the Strip to independent Palestinian technocrats, giving up its weapons has been a red line for the terror group that Arab officials have indicated will be difficult to accomplish unless done gradually and as part of an initiative that establishes a political horizon for Palestinian statehood.

Hamas to date has publicly ruled out giving up its weapons, ostensibly seeking to secure the pre-2024 scenario that Hezbollah enjoyed in Lebanon where it didn’t have a formal role in the government’s leadership but had effective veto power over decisions due to its heavy arsenal.

Arab states, on the other hand, are envisioning a post-2024 Lebanon scenario for Gaza where an alternative PA-linked government is installed with support from neighboring Arab countries to stabilize the Strip by gradually working to disarm and marginalize what is left of Hamas.

However, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government has ruled out a role for the PA in post-war Gaza, a condition that risks leaving Israel alone to run the Strip and provide services to its roughly 2 million Palestinians.

COGAT complains that UN not including non-UN aid in its tracker of trucks entering Gaza

Israel’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) accuses the United Nations of providing misleading data on the number of humanitarian aid trucks entering the Gaza Strip.

The accusation is based on the fact that a UN online dashboard documenting aid deliveries in Gaza only includes those that the UN is involved in, and not deliveries conducted independent of the UN, including the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation — which runs aid distribution sites in Gaza — airdrops by various nations, and the private sector in Gaza.

It’s unclear why COGAT expects the UN to have data on the whereabouts of aid from unaffiliated organizations once it enters Gaza.

The UN dashboard even specifies that the “data presented on this dashboard include only humanitarian relief consignments processed through the UN2720 Mechanism,” referring to a delivery mechanism led by the UN, which not all aid groups are registered with.

COGAT, the Defense Ministry body that coordinates humanitarian matters in the Gaza Strip, says it conducted a “comprehensive review” that exposes a “dramatic gap between the actual number of aid trucks entering Gaza and the figures presented by the UN.”

“Since May, according to UN data, only 3,553 trucks entered the Gaza Strip. In reality, Israel allowed the entry of nearly 9,200 trucks. This represents a gap of almost 6,000 trucks – 2.5 times the volume of aid that the UN claims actually entered,” COGAT says.

“The fact that the UN presents only part of the aid actually transferred misleads the international community and creates a false picture of the situation, directly influencing global media coverage and shaping the positions of international decision-makers regarding the humanitarian situation in Gaza,” COGAT charges, despite the UN dashboard specifying that it does not record all aid deliveries.

COGAT claims the UN dashboard “purports to present a full picture of all humanitarian aid, but in practice it includes only the trucks facilitated by UN agencies and a small number of aid organizations working with them.”

“The dashboard fails to include aid delivered by other actors in the humanitarian system, including various states, additional international organizations, the private sector, airdrops, and the distribution centers of the American company,” COGAT says.

COGAT runs its own dashboard, which it says “provides a daily breakdown of the number of trucks entering Gaza, categorized by crossing point and type of goods.”

“The data presented on the site reflects the full and accurate picture of the aid that Israel allows into the Gaza Strip,” it adds.

However, COGAT’s data too is incomplete as it only tracks aid once it is offloaded from Gaza terminals, with limited data on its delivery within the Strip.

While PM still mum, ‘senior Israeli official’ reiterates after Hamas response that partial deals a no-go

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a glass of water in a video address to the Iranian people, on August 12, 2025. (Government Press Office)

A senior Israeli official reiterates that Israel’s commitment to a comprehensive ceasefire and hostage-release framework “has not changed,” a day after Hamas agreed to a partial ceasefire and hostage-release deal.

“Israel’s policy is consistent and has not changed. Israel demands the release of all 50 hostages in accordance with the principles set by the cabinet for ending the war. We are at the final stage of decisively defeating Hamas, and we will not leave any hostage behind,” the official says in a statement.

The remark echoes a nearly identical statement delivered last night by a senior official in response to the latest proposal — which reportedly represents a significant scaling back of the demands Hamas made last month that derailed talks in Doha.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has since underscored that Israel is moving ahead with plans for an expanded military campaign in Gaza, insisting Hamas is under “immense pressure.” In recent days, he has repeatedly emphasized that Israel will only accept a comprehensive agreement that includes the release of all hostages, Hamas’s disarmament, the Strip’s demilitarization, continued Israeli security control, and governance by a body other than the Palestinian Authority.

Notably, however, Netanyahu has not publicly ruled out the partial deal being advanced by Arab mediators since reports emerged of Hamas’s acceptance — a signal that Jerusalem is still keeping its options open.

Israeli envoy says France’s temporary suspension of visas for El Al staff to be lifted

France’s temporary suspension of visas for El Al security staff “has been solved,” Israeli Ambassador to France Joshua Zarka tells The Times of Israel in a phone interview.

“That issue has been solved, the visas for El Al have been solved,” he says, stressing that the matter was unrelated to rising tensions between the two countries over Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. “No, it was something different.”

The visas “are expected to be renewed,” following a dialogue between the Israeli embassy in France and the French Foreign Ministry, adds the ambassador’s spokesperson.

Reports — later confirmed by a French diplomatic source — that France had halted the visas of El Al security staffers sparked concern among Israelis and some diplomatic figures, including US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee, who publicly condemned the move.

Say it ain't so, France. Say it ain't so! What happened to France?https://t.co/yYINISH1Gh

— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) August 12, 2025

The suspension had temporarily prevented staff of Israel’s flagship airline from working legally in France, the latest in a string of challenges El Al personnel have faced there amid mounting French opposition to Israeli policy.

Still, the French source, like Zarka, denied a link to the Gaza war, instead attributing the move to difficulties French diplomatic staff encountered during security screenings at Paris’s main airport.

Gang of masked burglars robs Dimona gas station as wave of southern Israel break-ins grows

A gang of masked burglars robbed a gas station in Dimona last night, Hebrew outlets report, the latest in a string of gas station break-ins to strike locales in southern Israel.

The three perpetrators stole the gas station’s cash register and hundreds of packs of cigarettes, says owner Shimon Chetrit to Walla.

According to him, the robbery cost him NIS 100,000 ($30,000) worth of damage.

Security camera footage shows the three men, dressed in black, grabbing a gas station employee by the shirt and bringing him off camera.

They proceed to take a sledgehammer and attempt to break open a safe behind the counter, but fail to do so. They move on to the cash register and cigarettes, placing packs into two crates.

“I worried for my employee, they put him in a bathroom stall, I found him shaking with fear,” Chetrit says to the outlet. “I worry that something will happen in the end.”

רעולי פנים שדדו הלילה תחנת דלק בדימונה. הם איימו על העובד עם מוט ברזל, ניסו לפרוץ את הכספת וכשלא הצליחו , החליטו לגנוב את הקופה ורוקנו סיגריות מהמקום ועשו נזק בשווי 100 אלף שקלים. יומיים אחרי ששדדו תחנת דלק אחרת של אותו הבעלים.⁩⁩ pic.twitter.com/y0NBsFSAPT

— מה חדש. What's new❓ (@Gloz111) August 18, 2025

Law enforcement officials tell Walla that officers from the Dimona police station arrived at the scene shortly after the incident, opened an investigation and began searching for the suspects, who they say are of a Bedouin background.

Overnight Friday to Saturday in Yeruham, a Negev town in southern Israel, another gas station belonging to Chetrit was robbed by a group of three men.

The employee on shift before dawn Saturday morning fled the gang, which was armed with knives and iron bars.

This time, the robbers managed to dislodge Chetrit’s safe by attaching a thick rope to it, tying the other end to their car and dragging it with the force of the vehicle.

Police have not yet arrested any suspects in connection to either robbery.

תיעוד: תחנת דלק נשדדה בנגב והכספת נגנבה מהמקום. pic.twitter.com/JSiJSpteZI

— מה חדש. What's new❓ (@Gloz111) August 16, 2025

Trains to stop running in Tel Aviv for about a week due to repairs

View of the Israel Railways train at the train station in the southern Israeli city of Sderot, March 27, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Israel’s rail network will stop running in Tel Aviv for close to a week for repairs after a freight train caused extensive damage to several hundred meters of electric cable infrastructure last week.

The closures will begin on Wednesday and are due to last until the following Tuesday, August 26, Channel 12 reports.

The closures mean there will be no rail access from Tel Aviv’s four stations to Jerusalem, Ben-Gurion International Airport and most lines headed south. Trains running from northern stations and back will stop at Savidor Station, and Hashalom Station will be completely closed.

The closures also mean all north-south routes will be interrupted, as they pass through Tel Aviv.

Israel Railways will be operating free shuttle buses every five minutes between the Tel Aviv stations. It said that it will take the closure period as an opportunity to carry out upgrades it had planned for later in the year, according to Channel 12.

Opposition MKs join criticism of Tally Gotliv for calling security guard ‘Judenrat’

L to R: The Democrats leader Yair Golan, National Unity leader Benny Gantz, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid, lead their respective faction meetings at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on May 26, 2025. (All photos Noam Revkin Fenton/Flash90)

Several opposition lawmakers are criticizing Likud MK Tally Gotliv for comparing a court security guard to the ‘Judenraete,’ Holocaust-era Jewish councils forced to do the Nazis’ bidding.

Gotliv made the remark after being kicked out of a hearing concerning the Qatargate scandal. She was ejected for disrupting the proceedings, and also called the guard who removed her an “animal.”

On X, The Democrats chairman Yair Golan calls Gotliv’s action a “provocation” but says, in a reference to the Qatargate allegations, that it is more important to focus on the fact that Qatar both funded “funded Hamas and the October 7 massacre” as well as “Netanyahu’s closest advisors.”

Blue and White-National Unity chairman Benny Gantz posts that the guard whom Gotliv insulted is an IDF reservist and grandson of Holocaust survivors and her rhetoric is “precisely what we must not have in the Knesset and in Israel’s public discourse.”

“As a son of Holocaust survivors, I say to MK Gottlieb: Apologize, and you should be ashamed,” he adds.

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid, whose father was a Holocaust survivor, posts a description of the Judenraete and recounts Gotliv’s conduct in what appears to be an implied criticism of her actions.

In a statement, Yisrael Beytenu MK Yulia Malinovsky calls Gotliv’s behavior “calculated and planned” and accuses her of putting on a show for the cameras.

“The most worrying thing about the whole Tally Gotliv phenomenon is that, according to a recent poll conducted among Likud members, she ranks at the top. This is the new face of Likud,” Malinovsky states.

‘Politically toxic’: Lapid chides Netanyahu for attacking Australian PM

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid (left) leads a meeting of his Yesh Atid party at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on May 20, 2024. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90); Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a statement on May 22, 2024. (Screen capture)

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid slams Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu after he attacks the Australian premier as a “weak politician” who “betrayed Israel.”

“The thing that most strengthens a leader in today’s democratic world is a confrontation with Netanyahu, the most politically toxic leader in the Western world. It’s unclear why Bibi is rushing to give the Australian prime minister this gift,” Lapid posts on X.

In a statement posted on his official account on X, Netanyahu wrote earlier on Tuesday that “history will remember” Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese “for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.”

Netanyahu’s post came less than a day after Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced the revocation of residency visas for Australia’s diplomatic representatives to the Palestinian Authority in response to Canberra’s decision to bar far-right Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman from visiting the country.

Australia has also recently announced that it will recognize a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations.

In recent months, Jews in Australia have experienced a surge in antisemitism.

Gafni hints he will vote against defense budget boost to protest Haredi school cuts

MK Moshe Gafni leads a finance committee meeting, at the Knesset on July 14, 2025 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni appears to threaten to vote against increases to the defense budget, following reports that the government intends to cut millions of shekels set aside for Haredi education.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is set to approve an NIS 31 billion ($9 billion) increase to the 2025 state budget today. According to the Kan public broadcaster, an increase in defense spending will be coupled with across-the-board cuts to ministerial budgets (save for the Defense Ministry).

Those cuts include most of the funds set aside for Haredi schools’ eventual inclusion in the government’s New Horizon program, which funds work in small groups between teachers and pupils and bumps up teacher salaries, among other initiatives.

The program is currently restricted to state schools and does not apply to independent Haredi institutions, which do not teach secular subjects. The money is currently frozen until it can eventually be allocated.

Cutting these funds violates commitments by the coalition and “we will continue to fight with all our strength to protect the rights to which Haredi educators are entitled,” says Gafni, who recently stepped down as the chairman of the Knesset Finance Committee after his party left the coalition over a dispute regarding the conscription of ultra-Orthodox men.

“In parallel, next month, when the defense budget comes up for approval in the Knesset and the Finance Committee, which is supposed to be approved today in the cabinet meeting, we will consult the great Torah sages on how to vote, in light of all the recent developments,” he adds.

‘Apologize!’ Justice minister slams fellow Likud MK for comparing court guard to Judenrat

Justice Minister Yariv Levin speaks during a rally outside the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, June 5, 2025. (Arie Leib Abrams/Flash90)

Justice Minister Yariv Levin strongly condemns fellow Likud MK Tali Gotliv over her offensive remarks to a court security guard who physically removed her from a courtroom early today, in which she compared the guard to the Holocaust-era Judenraete and called him an ‘animal.’

The Judenraete were Nazi-established Jewish administrative councils that were forced to ensure Nazi orders were implemented.

“I was shocked by MK Tali Gotliv’s shameful conduct towards the security guards in the court, and I condemn it in the strongest terms,” says Levin.

“Comparing the security guards, the vast majority of whom are veterans of [military] combat units, to the ‘Judenraete’ and calling them ‘animals’ not only does not contribute to the struggle, but is a great disgrace, [and] shows contempt for the Holocaust,” he continues, adding that her conduct goes against the values of the Likud party.

The criticism is especially notable because Levin is the chief architect of the government’s contentious judicial overhaul and is perhaps the cabinet’s most outspoken critic of the court system.

The justice minister alleges that state law enforcement authorities were engaged in selective enforcement against Jonatan Urich, the suspect in the Qatargate scandal whose hearing Gotliv was attending. But Levin says that court security guards were “not responsible” for that situation.

“MK Gotliv’s behavior, her lack of respect and lack of collegiality towards the prime minister, cabinet ministers and her party members, her attacks against loyal Likud members who carried the movement on their backs during its difficult days, and the provocations she makes as her modus operandi, all of these do tremendous damage to the Likud as we approach an election year,” Levin says.

“MK Gotliv, stop embarrassing us! Apologize!” the justice minister demands.

In addition, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid addresses Gotliv’s remarks with a description of the Judenraete, in what appears to be an implied criticism. Lapid’s father, the late politician Tommy Lapid, was a Holocaust survivor.

“The ‘Judenrat’ was the Jewish leadership of the ghettos, appointed by the Nazis to manage ghetto life. Adam Czerniaków, for example, was the head of the ‘Judenrat’ of the Warsaw Ghetto. He received instructions from the Nazis to prepare lists of all the children in the ghetto. On the day he realized this meant sending children to the concentration camp, he took his own life,” Lapid posts on X.

“Today, MK Gotliv called the court security guards ‘Judenrat’ after they removed her from the courtroom for disrupting the discussion on extending the detention of Jonathan Urich,” he adds.

Ultra-Orthodox leaders call day of prayer, fasting to protest conscription crackdown

Rabbi Dov Lando addresses an anti-enlistment conference in Bnei Brak, July 31, 2025. (Daniel Nafusi)

Ultra-Orthodox leaders are calling for an international day of prayer and fasting on Thursday in response to recent government efforts to conscript ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students and arrest those who spurn government orders to enlist.

Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of Degel HaTorah, one of the factions of the Haredi United Torah Judaism party, issues a public appeal to Jews around the world to treat the day as if it were Yom Kippur Katan, a minor fast day in which worshippers recite prayers usually read on the Jewish Day of Atonement.

In the United States and Europe, Haredi Jews are “preparing to tear open the gates of heaven to overturn the conscription decree that threatens the Torah world,” party newspaper Yated Neeman states on its front page, quoting Lando as saying that “Jews are persecuting Jews because they are learning Torah.”

Ultra-Orthodox newspaper Hamodia, seen as a mouthpiece for UTJ’s Hasidic Agudat Yisrael faction, likewise calls for a “day of prayer, fasting and the cessation of work to cancel the decree of forced conscription and religious persecution.”

Despite the ongoing war in Gaza and the plight of the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, the state of Israel has “found the time to persecute Torah students” and “deprive them of their civil rights,” the paper declares.

Haredi men have long received an exemption from Israel’s mandatory military draft. But those exemptions were declared illegal by the High Court of Justice last summer. Lawmakers are now debating legislation to enshrine the exemptions, but in the meantime, Haredi men have been sent draft orders amid what the IDF calls an urgent manpower shortage.

According to the HaMevaser newspaper, which is affiliated with another wing of Agudat Yisrael, prayer rallies are set to be held in Antwerp, London, Paris, New York, Chicago, Miami and elsewhere. The paper says everyone aged 15 and older should fast half a day, while those unable to do so should donate to charity in an effort to appeal to God to “hasten their redemption by cancelling the decree.”

Thursday’s prayer rallies are due to take place a week to the day after Lando and other leading Haredi rabbis gathered in front of Israel’s Beit Lid military prison to pray for draft evaders being held inside.

On Monday, anti-Zionist Hasidic Jews demonstrated against the draft outside the Israeli consulate in Manhattan.

Senior leaders of the ultra-Orthodox community are considering holding demonstrations outside of Israeli embassies around the world to protest the arrest of Haredi draft evaders by the military police, a source with knowledge of the senior rabbis’ thinking told The Times of Israel earlier this month.

Sa’ar: Danish PM’s remarks on Netanyahu are ‘insult,’ threat of sanctions ‘will have no effect’

Denmark's Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen attends a ceremony at the Danish monument outside of Sainte Marie du Mont, Normandy, Thursday, June 6, 2024. (AP Photo/Jeremias Gonzalez)

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar says that the Danish premier’s recent criticism of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was an “insult” to the “Israeli democratic system,” and that threats of sanctions by the European Union member state “will have no effect on Israel at all.”

Speaking in an interview with the Danish daily Jyllands-Posten, Sa’ar responds to comments Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen made in the same paper on Friday, when she said Netanyahu had become “a problem,” and Israel would be better off without him in charge – though she clarified that was ultimately up to Israelis themselves.

Frederiksen pointed to violence by Israeli settlers in the West Bank, the government’s opposition to a two-state solution, and Israel’s military offensive in Gaza.

In reply, Sa’ar tells the paper: “Honestly, disagreements between friends are fine. And we regard the Danish prime minister as a friend. But to say about a democratically elected prime minister that he has become a problem – that insults not only the prime minister, but the entire Israeli democratic system.”

Sa’ar also dismisses Frederiksen’s comment that she would not rule out sanctions to increase pressure on Netanyahu or Israel.

“Pressure will not affect Israel at all. We are used to being under pressure. So we will not be influenced by others when it comes to our national security. We will not change policy. If we bend to pressure, it would be suicidal for us, and it would also harm European interests,” he says.

Frederikson stated that she was prepared to use Denmark’s role as holder of the EU presidency to “increase the pressure on Israel,” possibly through sanctions on Netanyahu and other government figures, West Bank settlers, or on trade or research cooperation.

Asked if Frederiksen could say anything that would change Israel’s approach, Sa’ar responds: “We always listen to our friends, and I have also had discussions with the [Danish] foreign minister about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. We have taken significant steps on the humanitarian front in recent months.”

But on security issues related to Israel’s war in Gaza, he stresses that Israel will not be swayed: “It is not that we don’t listen to criticism…But I tell you – and I think this is commonly known – that military experts have already said that when you look at the ratio of civilian casualties, you have to consider how many terrorists have been eliminated. This is a terrorist state. You have a choice: either you surrender to terrorism, or you fight it,” he says.

Sa’ar also praises Denmark for not joining other Western allies in recognizing a Palestinian state, noting Frederiksen’s remark that Hamas “controls much of the territory” in Gaza.

Government adding billions to budget, including for Gaza aid, as war costs mount

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, pictured outside the Knesset in Jerusalem on August 18, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government is set to approve an NIS 31 billion ($9 billion) increase to the 2025 state budget, NIS 1.6 billion ($473 million) of which will go toward humanitarian aid for Gaza, the Kan public broadcaster reports.

According to the Kan public broadcaster, the bulk of the increase will go toward defense spending and will be accompanied by an across-the-board cut of 3.35% of ministerial budgets, save for the Defense Ministry budget. The cuts are set to go into effect at the beginning of the new year.

The controversial NIS 755 billion ($205 billion) state budget was passed in March. Earlier this month, as Israel faced overwhelming global criticism due to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich acknowledged that the government would transfer billions of shekels from Israeli public coffers toward the provision of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Smotrich had previously opposed the entry of any assistance to the enclave, saying it fueled Hamas.

The vote will come after National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Education Minister Yoav Kisch said in a joint statement this morning that they would oppose the budget proposal unless it includes funding for security at educational institutions in the coming school year.

“At a time when the Finance Ministry wants to expand the budget for humanitarian aid, it is harming the security of our children,” Ben Gvir says in a statement, calling such a move “a disgrace that cannot be accepted.”

The changes to the budget are also opposed by the Knesset’s Haredi parties, which left the government last month amid a dispute over the conscription of yeshiva students.

According to Kan, the new cuts include most of the funds set aside for Haredi schools’ eventual inclusion in the government’s New Horizon program, which funds work in small groups between teachers and pupils and bumps up teacher salaries, among other initiatives.

In a statement, United Torah Judaism chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf threatens to oppose additional funds for Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock in the Knesset plenum over the issue.

“It is unacceptable that the education budgets for children of the ultra-Orthodox community are cut again and again in favor of a budget whose goals and purposes are shrouded in fog,” he says.

Foreign Ministry names next ambassadors to Russia, Slovakia

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar attends a conference organized by the Ministry of Diaspora Affairs, at the International Convention Center in Jerusalem on March 27, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The Foreign Ministry announces the appointments of Israel’s next ambassadors to Russia and Slovakia, whose names will soon be submitted for government approval.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has tapped Oded Joseph, currently the ministry’s deputy director general and head of the Middle East and Peace Process Division, as Israel’s next ambassador to Russia. Joseph previously served as Israel’s ambassador to Kenya and non-resident ambassador to Uganda, Malawi and Seychelles, and has held posts in Moscow, Washington, DC, and Singapore.

Cobi Yanovsky, Director of the Gulf States Department and former head of the ministry’s cadet training course, has been appointed as Israel’s next ambassador to Slovakia. He previously served in Tokyo and Chengdu, China.

Judicial Authority condemns Gotliv, backs security guards after she calls them ‘Judenrat’

MK Tally Gotliv arrives for a court hearing concerning Jonatan Urich in Lod on August 19, 2025. (Jonathan Shaul/Flash90)

The Judicial Authority, an umbrella body representing the Israeli court system, voices support for court security guards after a Likud lawmaker compared them to Jews who did the bidding of the Nazis.

In the incident earlier today, Likud MK Tally Gotliv made offensive remarks to a security guard as she was being who removed from the Lod – Central District Court on the instructions of the presiding judge. She called one of the guards “an animal.” Outside the courtroom, after he told her he was doing his job, she responded, “It’s not your job. The Judenraete also had [work].”

The Judenraete were Nazi-established Jewish administrative councils that were forced to ensure Nazi orders were implemented.

“Personnel of the court security service, the Judicial Authority supports you,” the Judicial Authority says in a statement. “Continue to carry out your work faithfully and with dedication to protect the security of workers and the public, and [to] maintain public order in the courts, and not to allow anyone to divert you from fulfilling your duty.”

The statement added, “The Judicial Authority strongly condemns the behavior and words of MK Gotliv, and will not tolerate any attempt to harm the proper course of hearings, or officials performing their duties.”

Gotliv has repeatedly interrupted court proceedings over the last two years, including disrupting hearings in the High Court of Justice, and has been removed from courtrooms as a result on multiple occasions.

Israel: 370 trucks of aid entered Gaza yesterday, hundreds still awaiting collection

Displaced Palestinians make their way towards the site of a humanitarian aid airdrop at the Bureij camp in the central Gaza Strip, on August 17, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)

Some 370 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, the Defense Ministry body that coordinates humanitarian matters in the Gaza Strip, about 350 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.

“The contents of hundreds of trucks are still awaiting collection on the Gazan side of the crossings,” COGAT says.

Another 180 pallets of aid — about 6-9 trucks’ worth — were airdropped by Jordan, the UAE, Germany, Belgium, Italy, France, the Netherlands, Singapore, and Indonesia in Gaza yesterday, according to the IDF. Each pallet has about one ton of food.

Similar amounts of aid deliveries have been reported daily for approximately the past week.

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 amid the war.

COGAT also says that “tankers of UN fuel entered for the operation of essential humanitarian systems” yesterday.

Israeli sovereignty in West Bank more ‘urgent’ than normalization, Likud MK says

Likud MK Boaz Bismuth (right) and Samaria Regional Council head Yossi Dagan on August 19, 2025, in the northern West Bank. (Courtesy of Dagan's office)

Likud MK Boaz Bismuth says establishing Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank is at least as important, and more urgent, than reaching normalization deals with neighboring countries.

Bismuth, an ally of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who recently became chair of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, makes the remarks on a tour of the northern West Bank as the guest of Yossi Dagan, head of the Samaria Regional Council.

The tour takes Bismuth to settlements, farms and security lookout points alongside Dagan and Yoni HaYisraeli, head of the local branch of Likud.

In a video distributed by Dagan’s office, Bismuth calls applying sovereignty to the West Bank, a step akin to annexation of the territory, “a decisive victory.”

The Knesset approved a non-binding motion in favor of annexing the West Bank in July. In recent years, in discussions about a potential normalization deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, the kingdom has stipulated that Israel must take concrete steps toward the establishment of a Palestinian state, which annexation would preclude.

“Normalization is important, but applying sovereignty is no less important, even more urgent,” Bismuth says. “With God’s help, we will do this quickly, because this war needs to end with victory.”

“I feel much more at home in Samaria than anywhere else in the world, and I’m very proud to be here,” says the lawmaker, who resides in Tel Aviv, in the video.

Netanyahu slams Australian PM: ‘A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews’

Left to right: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the opening ceremony of the Knesset Museum in Jerusalem, August 11, 2025. (Maayan Toaf/GPO); Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese speaks during a press conference in Canberra on August 11, 2025. (Hilary Wardhaugh / AFP)

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has “betrayed Israel” and “abandoned” his country’s Jewish community, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declares.

In a statement posted on his official account on X, Netanyahu writes that “history will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia’s Jews.”

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu:

History will remember Albanese for what he is: A weak politician
who betrayed Israel and abandoned Australia's Jews.

— Prime Minister of Israel (@IsraeliPM) August 19, 2025

Netanyahu’s statement comes less than a day after Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar announced the revocation of residency visas for Australia’s diplomatic representatives to the Palestinian Authority. That step was in retaliation to Canberra’s decision to bar far-right Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman from visiting the country.

Australia also recently barred entry to former justice minister Ayelet Shaked and pro-Israel activist and influencer Hillel Fuld. Canberra has announced that it will recognize a Palestinian state in September at the United Nations General Assembly.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong said earlier on Tuesday that revoking the diplomats’ visas was an “unjustified reaction” by Israel.

“At a time when dialogue and diplomacy are needed more than ever, the Netanyahu Government is isolating Israel and undermining international efforts towards peace and a two-state solution,” she says in a statement.

In a social media post, Sa’ar accused the Australian government of fanning the flames of antisemitism, which has hit the country’s 120,000-strong Jewish community hard since the Hamas-led massacre in Israel on October 7, 2023.

In recent months, Jews there have seen their synagogues, schools, and homes firebombed. In addition, two nurses threatened to kill Israeli patients in their hospital, and authorities discovered a trailer filled with explosives that was said to have been intended to cause a mass-casualty event at a Jewish institution.

Likud MK ejected from Qatargate hearing, compares security guard to ‘Judenrat’

Likud MK Tally Gotliv speaks during a committee meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, March 11, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Likud MK Tally Gotliv is forcibly ejected from a court hearing on the Qatargate affair for constantly interrupting proceedings, and compares the security guard who removed her to Jews who worked with the Nazis during the Holocaust.

The hearing in the Lod – Central District Court concerns a police appeal against a lower court decision to remove the restrictive conditions on Jonatan Urich, a key aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a central suspect in the Qatargate scandal. Those restrictions include a ban on contacting other figures connected to the Qatargate affair, as well as anyone working in the Prime Minister’s Office, including Netanyahu himself.

After Judge Amit Michles orders Gotliv to be removed from the courtroom, the incendiary MK refuses, claiming she has parliamentary immunity, the Kan public broadcaster reports.

After she refuses a request from security guards to leave of her own accord, Gotliv is physically removed by the guards. On the way out she calls one of the guards “an animal.” Outside the courtroom, after he tells her he was doing his job, she responds, “It’s not your job. The Judenraete also had [work].”

ועכשיו עם התיעוד:

ח"כ טלי גוטליב לאיש משמר בתי המשפט שהוציא אותה מהדיון: "בהמה"

איש המשמר: "אני עושה את העבודה שלי"

גוטליב: "זו לא העבודה שלך. גם ליודנרט היו" pic.twitter.com/RfYcWeLRCn

— רועי ינובסקי (@Roi_Yanovsky) August 19, 2025

The Judenraete were Nazi-established Jewish administrative councils that were forced to ensure Nazi orders were implemented.

During the hearing, a police investigator tells the court that the investigation had led to a “substantive suspicion” that, following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led massacre, Israeli officials had worked to build for Qatar “an orchestrated plan… to change the negative narrative created against it” due to Doha’s funding for Hamas.

“Urich, together with others, played an active role in executing that plan, in parallel with his work in the Prime Minister’s Office,” says the investigator.

Urich is suspected of multiple offenses tied to his work for a pro-Qatar lobbying firm. He is suspected of contact with a foreign agent and breach of trust due to what prosecutors believe were his efforts to improve Qatar’s image as hostage-release and ceasefire negotiation mediators, while working as an adviser to Netanyahu at the same time.

Ben Gvir, Kisch vow to oppose budget unless it funds security at schools

Education Minister Yoav Kisch attends a meeting of the Knesset Education, Culture, and Sports Committee in Jerusalem, May 12, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir and Education Minister Yoav Kisch say they will oppose the budget proposal being presented to the government today unless it includes funding for security at educational institutions in the coming school year.

“The security of Israel’s students comes before all else,” says Kisch in a statement. “It is inconceivable that while humanitarian aid to Gaza is being expanded, Israel’s students will be left without protection. We demand that the Finance Ministry close the budget gap and ensure full security at every school.”

“At a time when the Finance Ministry wants to expand the budget for humanitarian aid, it is harming the security of our children,” says Ben Gvir. “This is a disgrace that cannot be accepted.”

Kisch warned last week that the September 1 opening of the school year could be delayed if money is not found to pay for security. The ministers’ demand also comes amid a brewing labor dispute with the teachers union that threatens to delay the start of the school year.

Iran carries out public execution of convicted murderer

A man was publicly executed in southern Iran on Tuesday after being found guilty of murdering four people, state media reported.

“One of the perpetrators of the brutal murder of four members of a family in Beyram, in Fars province, was hanged in public on Tuesday,” said Mizan, the Iranian judiciary’s news portal.

Murder and rape are punishable by death in Iran, which is second only to China in terms of the number of executions it carries out, according to rights groups including Amnesty International.

Iran generally carries out public executions by hanging at dawn.

“The accused and his wife murdered a mother and three children during a robbery in October 2024,” Mizan said.

The couple were sentenced to death in February of this year, with the verdict confirmed by the country’s Supreme Court in April, according to Iranian media.

Mizan reported that the execution of the man’s wife would be carried out in prison, without giving a date.

Palestinian reports: At least 25 killed in Gaza by Israeli airstrikes this morning

Armed Palestinians sit on trucks carrying humanitarian aid near the Zikim border crossing between Israel and Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip, August 18, 2025. (Khalil Kahlout/ Flash90)

At least 25 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli airstrikes in the Gaza Strip this morning, according to medical sources cited by Palestinian media.

The tolls are not verified, and there has been no comment yet from Hamas authorities in the Strip. The IDF has not yet commented on the reports and says it is looking into the cases.

One drone strike overnight in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah reportedly hit a tent for displaced people, killing five, including a 1-year-old and two children ages 12 and 13, alongside two adults.

Another strike in Deir al-Balah this morning killed five people, according to Palestinian media.

In southern Gaza’s Khan Younis, Palestinian media report a strike that killed eight.

Relatives of hostages briefly block traffic on Ayalon Highway to demand a deal

Relatives of freed hostages briefly block southbound traffic on Tel Aviv’s Ayalon Highway, calling for a deal to release the remaining captives held by Hamas in Gaza and opposing Israel’s planned conquest of Gaza City.

Demonstrators with the Women’s Protest group hold a pink-and-purple banner reading, “Conquering Gaza = Sacrificing the hostages and soldiers.” They chant, “Their time is running out, a deal is on the table,” and “Enough killing, enough bereavement, hostages above all,” according to Walla, a Hebrew outlet.

Walla reports that the protesters include relatives of freed hostages Gadi Mozes and Arbel Yehoud, as well as the son of Avner and Maya Goren, who were murdered by Hamas terrorists.

They are subsequently cleared out by police and the highway is reopened.

https://twitter.com/N12News/status/1957670168827687222

The action comes two days after demonstrators blocked roads throughout the country as part of a nationwide strike pushing for a ceasefire deal to free the 50 hostages still in Gaza, at least 20 of whom are thought to be alive.

Mediators between Israel and Hamas are working to reach a ceasefire between the sides. Hamas has accepted a proposed 60-day truce, and Israel has confirmed receiving Hamas’s response but has said it wants a comprehensive agreement for the war’s end.

Families of hostages have called for another strike this coming Sunday.

IDF conducting military exercise in Red Sea near Eilat

The IDF says it will conduct a military exercise this afternoon in the Red Sea, off the coast of Israel’s southernmost city of Eilat.

“As part of the exercise, there will be increased movement of security forces and vessels at sea,” the military warns, adding that there is “no fear of a security incident.”

UN: Record 383 aid workers killed in global hotspots in 2024, nearly half in Gaza

Workers unload humanitarian aid packages provided by the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the World Food Programme (WFP) to residents of the predominantly Christian village of Qlayaa in southern Lebanon on October 15, 2024. (AFP)

A record 383 aid workers were killed in global hotspots in 2024, nearly half of them in Gaza during the war between Israel and Hamas, the United Nations humanitarian office says as it marks the annual day honoring the thousands of people who step into crises to help others.

UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher says the record number of killings must be a wake-up call to protect civilians caught in conflict and all those trying to help them.

“Attacks on this scale, with zero accountability, are a shameful indictment of international inaction and apathy,” Fletcher says in a statement on World Humanitarian Day. “As the humanitarian community, we demand — again — that those with power and influence act for humanity, protect civilians and aid workers and hold perpetrators to account.”

The Aid Worker Security Database, which has compiled reports since 1997, says the number of killings rose from 293 in 2023 to 383 in 2024, including over 180 in Gaza.

Most of the aid workers killed were national staff serving their communities who were attacked while on the job or in their homes, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, known as OCHA.

So far this year, the figures show no sign of a reversal of the upward trend, OCHA says.

There have been 245 major attacks in the past seven-plus months, and 265 aid workers have been killed during that time, according to the database.

“Even one attack against a humanitarian colleague is an attack on all of us and on the people we serve,” the UN’s Fletcher says. “Violence against aid workers is not inevitable. It must end.”

There were 599 major attacks affecting aid workers last year, a sharp increase from the 420 in 2023, the database’s figures show. The attacks in 2024 also wounded 308 aid workers and saw 125 kidnapped and 45 detained.

According to the database, violence against aid workers increased in 21 countries in 2024 compared with the previous year, with government forces and affiliates the most common perpetrators.

Lebanon, where Israel and Hezbollah terrorists fought a war last year, saw 20 aid workers killed compared with none in 2023.

Foreign minister departs for Zambia to inaugurate new embassy

Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema speaks during the Lobito Corridor Trans-Africa Summit at the Carrinho food processing factory near Lobito, Angola, on Wednesday, Dec. 4, 2024. (AP/Ben Curtis)

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar departs today for a diplomatic visit to Zambia, where he will inaugurate Israel’s embassy in the southern African nation, his office says in a statement.

During the trip, Sa’ar will meet with Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema, Foreign Minister Mulambo Haimbe, and Speaker of Parliament Nelly Mutti to discuss “a series of initiatives” aimed at strengthening bilateral ties.

The inauguration ceremony at the embassy is scheduled for tomorrow, and “marks an important step in deepening bilateral ties with Zambia,” the statement adds, saying that the move “forms part of a broader initiative to expand and strengthen relations with African nations,” one of Sa’ar’s “strategic goals” for the ministry this year.

Deputy Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel also recently traveled to South Sudan.

En route to Zambia, Sa’ar will also stop in Addis Ababa to meet with his Ethiopian counterpart, Gedion Timotheos, his fourth meeting with the minister since taking office.

The statement notes that Israel previously had an embassy in Zambia in the 1960s and 1970s after the country gained independence from Britain, but later closed it as part of a broader reduction of its diplomatic missions across Africa.

Zambia reopened its embassy in Israel in 2015. Sa’ar announced plans in January to reopen Israel’s mission in the capital of Lusaka, and the government appointed an ambassador to the country last month.

Report: Netanyahu confidant Ron Dermer secretly visits UAE to discuss Gaza

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer speaks at the Jewish News Syndicate conference in Jerusalem, on April 28, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer recently visited the United Arab Emirates to discuss Gaza amid renewed efforts toward a ceasefire in the enclave, the Kan public broadcaster reports.

Dermer, a close confidant of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, took the helm of Israel’s negotiating team in truce talks earlier this year. Mediators have been pushing for a pause in the fighting since Israel decided earlier this month to embark on an invasion of Gaza City.

On Monday, Hamas said it had accepted the latest draft of a 60-day ceasefire agreement that would see the release of 10 living Israeli hostages. Israeli officials confirmed that they had received the terror group’s proposal, but indicated that Israel seeks a comprehensive deal to end the war.

Dermer took the secret trip with a high-level delegation, the Kan report says. He met with Emirati officials and, alongside Gaza, discussed security and diplomatic affairs.

His office had no comment, Kan says. Dermer has reportedly indicated that he seeks to retire before the next election, which is due to take place next year.

Australia chides Israel after it revokes visas of diplomats to PA, in ongoing spat

Australia's Foreign Minister Penny Wong in Adelaide on June 16, 2024. (Asanka Ratnayake / POOL / AFP)

Australia’s foreign minister criticizes Israel for revoking visas held by Canberra’s diplomatic representatives to the Palestinian Authority.

Israel’s tit-for-tat move followed Australia’s decision on Monday to block far-right MK Simcha Rothman from the country ahead of a speaking tour.

Australia and Israel have been increasingly at odds since Canberra declared earlier this month that it would recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September.

Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong says revoking the diplomats’ visas was an “unjustified reaction” by Israel.

“At a time when dialogue and diplomacy are needed more than ever, the Netanyahu Government is isolating Israel and undermining international efforts towards peace and a two-state solution,” she says in a statement.

The Australian government on Monday cancelled Rothman’s visa. His Religious Zionism party is a member of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition.

Rothman had been scheduled to speak at events organized by the Australian Jewish Association.

Later on Monday, Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar said he had revoked the visas of Australia’s representatives to the Palestinian Authority.

“I also instructed the Israeli Embassy in Canberra to carefully examine any official Australian visa application for entry to Israel,” he said. “This follows Australia’s decisions to recognize a ‘Palestinian state’ and against the backdrop of Australia’s unjustified refusal to grant visas to a number of Israeli figures.”

Ship with hundreds of tons of food aid for Gaza nears Ashdod port

Containers loaded with humanitarian aid for Gaza, including flour, pasta, baby food and canned goods, are being loaded aboard a Panamanian-flagged ship at Cyprus' main port in Limassol, on Monday, Aug. 18, 2025. (AP Photo/Petros Karadjias)

After setting off from Cyprus, a ship loaded with 1,200 tons of food supplies for the Gaza Strip is approaching the port of Ashdod in southern Israel, in a renewed effort to alleviate the humanitarian crisis in the enclave.

The Panamanian-flagged vessel is loaded with 52 containers carrying food aid such as pasta, rice, baby food and canned goods. Israeli customs officials had screened the aid at the Cypriot port of Limassol, from where the ship departed on Monday.

Some 700 tons of the aid is from Cyprus, purchased with money donated by the United Arab Emirates to the so-called Amalthea Fund, set up last year for donors to help with seaborne aid. The rest comes from Italy, the Maltese government, a Catholic religious order in Malta and the Kuwaiti nongovernmental organization Al Salam Association.

Shipborne deliveries can bring much larger quantities of aid than the air drops that several nations have recently made in Gaza. Most of the aid to the territory arrives via trucks.

“The situation is beyond dire,” Cyprus Foreign Minister Constantinos Kombos tells The Associated Press.

The Cypriot Foreign Ministry says Tuesday’s mission is led by the United Nations but is a coordinated effort. Once offloaded at Ashdod, UN aid employees will arrange for the aid to be trucked to storage areas and food stations operated by the World Central Kitchen, a nonprofit that has distributed aid in Gaza.

The charity, which was behind the first aid shipment to Gaza from Cyprus last year aboard a tug-towed barge, is widely trusted in the battered territory.

“The contribution of everyone involved is crucial and their commitment incredible,” Kombos says.

Cyprus was the staging area last year for 22,000 tons of aid deliveries by ship directly to Gaza through a pier operated by World Central Kitchen and a US military-run docking facility known as the Joint Logistics Over-the-Shore system.

By late July 2024, aid groups pulled out of the project, ending a mission plagued by repeated weather and security problems that limited how much food and other emergency supplies could get to those in need.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report. 

UN debates future withdrawal of Lebanon peacekeeping force

Peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) ride in armored vehicles during a patrol along the border with Israel by the village of Kfar Kila in south Lebanon on June 4, 2025. (AFP)

The United Nations Security Council has begun to debate a resolution drafted by France to extend the UN peacekeeping force in south Lebanon for a year with the ultimate aim to withdraw it.

Israel and the United States have reportedly opposed the renewal of the force’s mandate, and it is unclear if the draft text has backing from Washington, which wields a veto on the Council.

A US State Department spokesman says, “We don’t comment on ongoing UN Security Council negotiations,” as talks continue on the fate of the UN Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), deployed since 1978 to separate Lebanon and Israel.

The text, first reported by Reuters, would “extend the mandate of UNIFIL until August 31, 2026” but “indicates its intention to work on a withdrawal of UNIFIL.”

That would be on the condition that Lebanon’s government is the “sole provider of security in southern Lebanon… and that the parties agree on a comprehensive political arrangement.”

Under a truce that ended a recent war between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah, Beirut’s army has been deploying in south Lebanon and dismantling the terror group’s infrastructure there.

Lebanon has been grappling with the thorny issue of disarming Hezbollah, with the cabinet this month tasking the army with developing a plan to do so by the end of the year. The Iran-backed group has pushed back.

Under the truce, Israel was meant to completely withdraw from Lebanon, though it has kept forces in several areas it deems strategic and continues to carry out strikes across Lebanon. Israel’s forces have also had tense encounters with the UN blue helmets.

The draft resolution under discussion also “calls for enhanced diplomatic efforts to resolve any dispute or reservation pertaining to the international border between Lebanon and Israel.”

A vote of the 15-member council is expected on August 25 before the expiration of the force’s mandate at the end of the month.

North Korea’s Kim calls for rapid nuclear buildup amid US-South Korea exercises

This photo provided by the North Korean government shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un delivers a speech during a parliament in Pyongyang, North Korea, September 8, 2022. (Korean Central News Agency/Korea News Service via AP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un says his country needs to rapidly expand its nuclear armament and calls US-South Korea military exercises an “obvious expression of their will to provoke war,” state media KCNA reports.

South Korea and its ally the United States kicked off joint military drills this week, including testing an upgraded response to heightened North Korean nuclear threats.

Pyongyang regularly criticizes such drills as rehearsals for invasion and sometimes responds with weapons tests, but Seoul and Washington say they are purely defensive.

The 11-day annual exercises, called Ulchi Freedom Shield, will be on a similar scale to 2024 but adjusted by rescheduling 20 out of 40 field training events to September, South Korea’s military said earlier. Those delays come as South Korean President Lee Jae Myung says he wants to ease tensions with North Korea, though analysts are skeptical about Pyongyang’s response.

The exercises are a “clear expression of … their intention to remain most hostile and confrontational” to North Korea, Kim says, according to KCNA’s English translation of his remarks.

He says the security environment requires the North to “rapidly expand” its nuclear armament, noting that recent US-South Korea exercises involved a “nuclear element.”

Trump, EU’s von der Leyen discuss plight of children in war

US President Donald Trump and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said yesterday they spoke about missing children due to conflict as Trump hosted European and NATO leaders in Washington to discuss Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Trump’s wife, Melania Trump, raised the plight of children in Ukraine and Russia in a personal letter to Russian President Vladimir Putin, two White House officials said when Trump met Putin at a summit in Alaska Friday. Trump hand-delivered that letter to Putin.

Trump and the European leader “have been discussing the massive Worldwide problem of missing children,” the US president said on social media late yesterday, without mentioning any particular country in his post. “This is, likewise, a big subject with my wife, Melania.”