The Times of Israel liveblogged Wednesday’s events as they unfolded.
Einav Zangauker, mother of released hostage Matan Zangauker, hints that she may seek a role in politics, saying she wants to be among Israel’s decision-makers and vowing to continue public pressure on the government, according to Hebrew media reports.
Speaking at a “Tikva” event led by social and political activist Yaya Fink, Zangauker says she does not yet know where she will stand in the next election campaign, but stresses that “the struggle here still needs to be waged.”
Hebrew media quotes Zangauker as saying she would like “to be among the decision-makers in the country,” arguing that the current leadership is “failing” and attempting to evade responsibility. She says she and others would not wait quietly for elections, and demands the immediate establishment of a state commission of inquiry.
UK police make their first arrests since announcing officers will detain people who publicly chant pro-Palestinian calls to “globalize the intifada,” in a change prompted by Australia’s Bondi Beach attack.
London’s Metropolitan Police say two people “who shouted slogans involving calls for intifada were arrested for racially aggravated public order offences” at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in the British capital.
Officers arrest a third person for obstructing the arrests, the force adds.
The arrests come hours after the Met and police in England’s northwest city of Manchester announced they would “be more assertive” in policing such protests to counter alleged antisemitism and incitement to violence through slogans.
The move follows father-and-son gunmen killing 15 people Sunday at a Hanukkah festival on Sydney’s Bondi Beach and an October attack on a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar says that Israel is interested in a security-based understanding with Syria, emphasizing that Jerusalem is not seeking to expand its territorial footprint there and that its focus remains on preventing cross-border threats.
Speaking to Al Arabiya English, Sa’ar says Israel’s goal is to ensure that Syrian territory is not used as a platform for attacks, arguing that a security arrangement could benefit both sides. He rejects suggestions that Israel harbors territorial ambitions in Syria, saying its actions over the years demonstrate otherwise.
“We never had territorial ambitions in Syria – if we did, we could have taken more [territory],” he says.
Saar also addresses Israel’s northern front, saying that Israeli military activity in Lebanon is aimed at countering Hezbollah rather than infringing on Lebanese sovereignty. He describes Israel’s disputes with Lebanon as limited and solvable, but says Hezbollah — backed by Iran — continues to destabilize the country and block prospects for peace. Israel, he says, seeks normalization with Beirut but views the dismantling of Hezbollah as essential.
On Iran, Sa’ar warns that Tehran’s nuclear ambitions pose a threat well beyond Israel, pointing to US participation alongside Israel in strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities during a brief conflict in June as evidence of the broader concern.
Discussing Gaza, Sa’ar says Israel hopes the current ceasefire can advance but reiterates that Hamas’s continued military presence prevents a lasting resolution.
“We will not live with a terrorist state on our border,” he emphasizes.
Sa’ar also weighs in on the recent deadly attack in Sydney, saying it underscored the failure of the international community to adequately confront rising antisemitism, particularly in online spaces, and calls on Western governments to respond more forcefully.
WASHINGTON — Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad’s search for the body of Ran Gvili has slowed in recent days against the backdrop of Israeli strikes in Gaza,” two Arab diplomats tell The Times of Israel.
An IDF strike over the weekend killed senior Hamas commander Raed Saad, in what Washington has privately recognized was a violation of the ceasefire, the US official says.
The two Arab diplomats say it isn’t immediately clear whether the slowed search for Gvili — the final hostage still held in Gaza — is due to the difficult security and humanitarian conditions on the ground in Gaza or Hamas’s response to the Israeli strikes.
The diplomats spoke to The Times of Israel as part of a story revealing that the US has secured commitments from six countries to have their leaders join US President Donald Trump on the Board of Peace responsible for overseeing the management of postwar Gaza.
Benjamin Lee, former head of the IDF Spokesperson Unit’s Strategy and Messaging Department, replaces Jason Pearlman as President Isaac Herzog’s International Media Advisor.
“Jason has helped guide the Office of the President through perhaps Israel’s most challenging times with the international press,” says Herzog in a statement.
“In welcoming Benjamin, we know we have a bright and keen new addition to our team who will contribute greatly to the work of the Office of the President,” he continues.
A sheikh from Jaffa has received a notice from the Interior Ministry that he may be suspended from his government job as imam in the city’s al-Nuzha Mosque for taking part in a protest after a racist attack on a pregnant Arab woman on Saturday.
Sheikh Mohammad Mahameed, 36, shares on social media a letter from a deputy director in the ministry, dated Tuesday, saying he had until tomorrow at 8 a.m. to appeal the decision to suspend him.
Non-Jewish clergy in Israel who are officially recognized by the Interior Ministry’s religions department receive a government salary and are considered civil servants.
“The far right failed to silence my voice by unjustly putting me in jail; now they’re trying to punish me by dismissing me from my position as imam of the al-Nuzha Mosque in Jaffa,” says Mahameed on Facebook.
He dismisses the charges against him and says he will continue in his role whether or not the government pays him. “Our mosques are not toys!” he adds.
The al-Nuzha Mosque invited Jaffa’s Muslim community to take part in an evening prayer today in support of Mahameed. Haaretz reports that about 200 people attended, including Sheikh Safwat Freij, head of the Islamic Movement, and that Mahameed said in a sermon there: “We’re not afraid, because we spoke the truth — we want to live in this city in security and peace.”
כמאתיים בני אדם משתתפים בכינוס במסגד א-נוזהה ביפו במחאה על ההזמנה של אימאם המסגד, שיח׳ מוחמד מחאמיד, לשימוע בידי משרד הפנים. מחאמיד נושא דברים בקריאה לאחדות יפו, ואומר כי אנשיה לא יוותרו. במקום נוכח בין השאר גם שיח׳ ספואת פריג׳, ראש התנועה האסלאמית בישראל pic.twitter.com/GUhywt8aCj
— Yair Foldes (@Yair_Foldes) December 17, 2025
The grounds for Mahameed’s suspension as a public employee are the criminal probe launched against him on suspicion of participating in an illegal protest, disturbing public order, disturbing the peace and disorderly conduct, according to the letter he received. The letter cites Clause 48 of the 1963 Civil Servants (Discipline) Law, which stipulates that civil servants can be suspended for up to 30 days if there is reason to believe they have committed a crime.
Veteran Arab MK Ahmad Tibi slams the move to suspend Mahameed. “Has a Jewish rabbi ever been punished for clear incitement to violence and racism? Never. Because they’re Jewish,” he says. “You won’t silence the Arabs of Jaffa.”
The Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipality declines to comment on the issue of Mahameed’s suspension.
Mahameed was one of 14 Arabs from Jaffa, including four other Muslim religious officials, who were arrested following the Saturday protest, according to the local Arabic-language news site Yaffa48.
Police accused the detainees of shouting nationalist slogans against Jewish people. Footage from a speech Mahameed gave during the protest shows him leading the crowd in chants of “With spirit and blood we’ll redeem you, Jaffa,” and, referring to Jews, saying: “If anyone wants to leave this place, it’ll be them.”
"ברוח, בדם נפדה אותך יפו. זה או אנחנו – או אנחנו": במילים האלה ובנחישות שילהב הלילה את הקהל המוסלמי-יפואי השיח' מוחמד מחאמיד – מואזין מסגד "אל-נוזהה" בעיר שממנו יצאו שני מחבלים תושבי חברון לביצוע פיגוע הירי ברכבת הקלה ביפו באוקטובר 2024.
הרקע למחאות ביפו ובהן הקריאות הלאומניות… pic.twitter.com/XALJmcMTpS
— עומרי חיים | Omri Haim (@HaimOmri) December 13, 2025
All 14 have since been released. Mahameed, who was arrested Sunday night, went home the next day. The Arab48 news site has cited released suspects as saying they were told by police investigators that the arrest was a “decision from high up.”
On Monday, police arrested three Jewish suspects in the attack. The court earlier today extended the suspects’ arrest until Sunday. According to Hebrew media, they are part of the Hilltop Youth group, who are currently barred from entering the West Bank due to previous attacks on Palestinians.
Mahameed’s al-Nuzha Mosque made headlines in October last year when members alerted authorities to an ongoing shooting attack whose perpetrators, Palestinians from the West Bank, had stashed equipment in the mosque and threatened worshipers. Nonetheless, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir threatened to demolish the mosque if any members were found complicit, and Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu referred to its members as “terrorists.”
Responding to calls by fellow opposition party leaders to resign in light of his party’s inability to pass the electoral threshold in recent polls, Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz asks where they got the impression that he is part of their bloc.
“I’m putting aside the question of the right to vote and be elected. And the democrats, and the liberals — whoever said I’m in your bloc? I mean, where did you sign me up? Where did I sign that I’m yours? I belong to the State of Israel,” Gantz tells attendees at a parlor meeting in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut in a recording broadcast by Channel 12.
Several opposition politicians — such as Yesh Atid’s Noam Tibon and his former number two, Gadi Eisenkot — have called on Gantz to resign due to his poll numbers, which indicate that if elections were held today, Blue and White would fail to enter the Knesset.
Eisenkot is part of the so-called change bloc of parties opposed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“Honestly, I’m telling you, I’m doing everything so that Netanyahu will end his term,” Gantz tells the parlor meeting, adding that he does not want a repeat of the “change government” of Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, which held a razor-thin majority of one seat in the Knesset.
“I’m not willing to make do with 61” seats, he says, arguing against calls by members of the change bloc to pass a constitution with only a slim parliamentary majority should they win the election.
“I answered him; What do you mean? We’ve just come out to demonstrations because they have 64” seats and tried to advance a judicial overhaul. “So you want to pass a constitution with 61? That’s not reasonable.”
Responding to Channel 12’s report, Blue and White tells the network that “our message is consistent. The best solution for Israel is a broad Zionist consensus government without extremists.”
Gantz hasn’t expressly stated that he won’t sit in a government led by Netanyahu.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump began planning for a potential strike on Iran’s nuclear program after their first meeting in February, and developed an elaborate public deception program, The Washington Post reports.
During their February meeting, Netanyahu presented Trump with four options on what an attack on Iran could look like, according to the report. The four scenarios were an exclusively Israeli attack, an attack led by Israel with minimal US help, full collaboration, and a US-led assault.
While Trump chose to give nuclear diplomacy an opportunity, the intelligence-sharing and preparations for an attack continued, per the report. “The thinking was, if talks fail, we are ready to go,” said one person familiar with the details.
As they moved closer to a strike, the two leaders sought to lull Iran into complacency.
On June 12, Trump said that he prefers a negotiated solution to a military strike. Israeli officials leaked word that top Netanyahu adviser Ron Dermer and Mossad director David Barnea would be meeting senior White House envoy Steve Witkoff in the near future, and a round of nuclear talks between the US and Iran was scheduled for June 15.
Both countries also leaked signs that there were tensions between the two allies: “All the reports that were written about Bibi not being on the same page with Witkoff or Trump were not true,” says someone familiar with the details. “But it was good that this was the general perception; it helped to move on with the planning without many people noticing it.”
According to the US outlet, the Mossad intelligence agency armed more than 100 Iranian agents, some of whom were trained in Israel.
They were given specific missions, but were not told that it was part of a broad assault on Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile program. “This operation is unprecedented in history,” says an Israeli official. “We mobilized our own assets and agents to go close to Tehran and launch the ground operation before the air force could enter Iranian airspace.”
Some Iranian agents were given a three-piece “special weapon” designed for precision strikes, says a senior Israeli security official.
Iran managed to retrieve some of the launchers, but not the missiles or a “secret third component,” says the Israeli official.
Israel also assassinated 11 senior Iranian nuclear scientists in the early stages of the attack, in what it called Operation Narnia. To prepare, according to The Washington Post, Israel chose around a dozen top scientists from an initial list of 100, and closely tracked each one and their movements, homes, and work.
A senior Israeli intelligence officer says that Israel tried to minimize collateral damage as much as possible, though dozens of civilians were killed in the strikes.
During the war, while Israel was hammering Iran’s nuclear and ballistic missile programs, Trump made another, secret offer to Iran on June 15. The offer was far less favorable to Iran than previous ones, and would see Iran stop supporting armed proxies and shut down its enrichment facilities. Trump would then lift all sanctions, according to the offer.
The US sent the offer to Iran via Qatar, but the Iranians rejected it, and Trump decided to join the Israeli operation, according to a senior diplomat.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told US special envoy to Syria Tom Barrack during their meeting on Monday that he would appoint a new Israeli representative in the coming days to negotiations with Damascus on a security arrangement, Channel 12 reports, citing US officials.
The talks, which have been mediated by the US for months, have effectively frozen since the resignation of Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer, who previously led the effort on Israel’s behalf, leading Barrack to urge Netanyahu to appoint a new representative, two senior American officials told the network.
Netanyahu made clear in the meeting that Dermer would not continue handling the Syria file, even as a special envoy, and told Barrack he would update Washington within days on who would represent Israel, the report says.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announces that he has approved the largest energy deal in Israel’s history.
In a video statement alongside Energy Minister Eli Cohen, he says that the natural gas deal with Egypt is worth NIS 112 billion ($34.7 billion), of which NIS 58 billion ($18 billion) will go into public coffers. In the first four years, he says, around NIS 500 million ($155 million) will go to the state, and will climb to NIS 6 billion ($1.9 billion) by 2033.
“This money will strengthen education, health, infrastructure, security, the future of the coming generations,” says Netanyahu. He says he only approved the deal, which was held up in October, after he ensured that it met Israel’s vital needs, including security.
“The deal greatly strengthens Israel’s position as a regional energy superpower, and contributes to regional stability,” argues Netanyahu, adding that it will encourage other countries to search for gas in Israel’s waters.
He stresses that the companies are required to sell natural gas to Israelis “at a good price.”
“We have brought another jug of oil to the nation of Israel,” Netanyahu says in a reference to the Hanukkah miracle.
Cohen calls the deal “a historic moment for Israel.” He notes that this is also the largest export deal in Israel’s history.
Natural gas “is a strategic asset” for Israel, Cohen stresses.
There will be “more pleasant surprises,” concludes Netanyahu.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will give a statement at 8:25 Israel time tonight, his office says. The statement comes amid reports that he is about to sign a massive gas deal with Egypt.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Energy Minister Eli Cohen are putting the final touches on a stalled natural gas agreement with Egypt this evening, and it is expected to be signed tonight, an official in the Prime Minister’s Office tells The Times of Israel, confirming an earlier report by Channel 12.
In October, US Energy Secretary Chris Wright canceled his upcoming six-day visit to Israel after Cohen refused to sign off on the massive gas export agreement agreed upon between Jerusalem and Cairo.
In August, Israel’s Leviathan field signed a $35 billion deal to export natural gas to Egypt, the largest export agreement in Israel’s history.
But Cohen’s office said he won’t approve the deal until “fair prices are agreed upon for the Israeli market,” adding that the Trump administration applied significant pressure on Cohen and Netanyahu to approve the deal.
The gas deal has clear economic incentives for both sides, but Cohen has expressed concern that such exports could deplete Israel’s natural gas reserves and harm domestic energy security.
The gas deal in its original form was expected to funnel hundreds of millions of shekels in gas royalty revenues and taxes into the country’s state coffers.
According to a report in the Axios news site, the White House is looking to broker a summit between Netanyahu and Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi, hoping to push the two countries together through shared economic interests. In order to entice Sissi to attend such a meeting, Israel will need to make a range of concessions to Egypt, including signing a strategic gas deal between the countries, the report said.
“This is a huge opportunity for Israel. Selling gas to Egypt will create interdependence, get the countries closer together, create a warmer peace, and prevent war,” a US official told the news site.
WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Marco Rubio has wrapped up a meeting with visiting Qatari Prime Minister Mohammed Abdulrahman Al Thani at the State Department during which the sides reaffirmed their partnership and discussed opportunities to deepen bilateral ties, a thin-detailed US readout says.
The meeting was the seventh convening of the US-Qatar Strategic Dialogue.
Al Thani met yesterday with US lawmakers on Capitol Hill before having dinner with Vice President JD Vance, a source familiar with the matter says.
Police believe that a 63-year-old man arrested yesterday on suspicion of trying to kidnap a young girl in Beersheba was also involved in the disappearance of Haymanut Kasau, who went missing in February 2024 at the age of nine, Hebrew outlets report.
The suspicion came to light today during a remand hearing for the suspect in the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court, where he was ordered to six more days of remand.
Justice Dorit Saban-Noy reportedly wrote in her decision that there is reasonable suspicion against him in both cases, the Kan public broadcaster reports.
The investigation, overseen by the Lahav 433 major crimes unit, is currently subject to a gag order.
Lawyers in the Public Defender’s Office representing the suspect tell Kan that their client has no criminal record and describe him as a “law-abiding citizen,” but decline to elaborate in light of the gag order.
The IDF announced that it will conduct a military drill tomorrow in northern Israel.
“As part of the drill, there will be an increased movement of security forces and aircraft in the area,” the army says.
People publicly chanting pro-Palestinian calls to “globalize the intifada” will be arrested, UK police warn, saying the “context had changed” in the wake of the Bondi Beach massacre.
“We know communities are concerned about placards and chants such as ‘globalize the intifada, ‘” the London Metropolitan and Greater Manchester police forces say in a statement.
“Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed — words have meaning and consequence. We will act decisively and make arrests.”
UK police have already stepped up security around the country’s synagogues, Jewish schools and community hubs.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar urged Canberra to act against a “surge” in antisemitism after Sunday’s attack.
In a post on X, Sa’ar said since the October 7, 2023, attack and the subsequent war in Gaza, “there has been a surge in antisemitism in Australia, including violent incitement against Israel and Jews”.
He referred to slogans heard at pro-Palestinian protests, such as “Globalize the Intifada”, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will be Free,” and “Death to the IDF.”
While Britain’s prosecutors have said the phrases do not meet the threshold for prosecutions, “in the escalating threat context, we will recalibrate to be more assertive,” Met Commissioner Mark Rowley and the Manchester Chief Constable Stephen Watson say in their joint statement.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, whose wife is Jewish, denounced the weekend gun rampage in Australia as “sickening”, saying it was “an antisemitic terrorist attack against Jewish families”.
President Isaac Herzog speaks by phone with Pope Leo XIV, and extends Israel’s “warmest greetings” ahead of Christmas to the pontiff and to Christians around the world, says the President’s Residence.
They also discuss the global rise in antisemitism and the deadly shooting attack in Sydney, according to the Israeli readout.
Herzog stresses to Leo “the great importance of Israel’s relationship with the Holy See and Christians around the world,” as well as his “tremendous pride” in Israel’s Christian communities.
Herzog will host Israel’s Christian leaders at his residence after the Christmas holiday for an annual festive reception.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett says that his phone wasn’t hacked, after the Iranian “Handala” hackers’ group claimed to have infiltrated the politician’s cellphone in what it dubbed “Operation Octopus.”
“Following tests that we conducted, it has been determined that Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s phone wasn’t hacked,” says Bennett’s office in a brief statement.
The former premier has referred to Iran as “the head of the octopus” of forces threatening Israel in the region.
He is seen as the most credible challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in next year’s elections, for which he has already begun campaigning.
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich announces that MK Zvi Sukkot from his Religious Zionism party will be appointed chair of the Knesset Education Committee, pending approval by the Knesset House Committee.
In response, Sukkot says he is “excited to receive the great honor” and that he will “work with all [his] strength for the benefit of education in Israel.”
“Education is the most important foundation for Israel’s advantage in the region and for the growth of the people of Israel,” he continues.
Sukkot will replace Shas MK Yosef Taib, whose ultra-Orthodox Shas party quit the government to protest the lack of a law regulating the conscription of yeshiva students in July.
The party announced in October its withdrawal from all coalition roles it held in the Knesset, giving up its chairmanships of parliamentary committees, including the Education Committee, which has not functioned in months.
Sukkot’s appointment to lead the committee comes a month after the far-right lawmaker was questioned by police over his participation, along with other coalition MKs, in a mob that rioted and broke into the IDF’s Sde Teiman military base.
Sukkot has since defended his actions and insisted that he was permitted to enter “any place in the State of Israel.”
The German parliament has approved a $3.1 billion expansion to the Arrow 3 long-range missile defense system deal with Israel, Israel’s Defense Ministry says.
This month, Israel delivered the Arrow 3 to Germany, completing a $3.5 billion deal signed two years earlier.
The expansion to the deal will “significantly increase the production rate of Arrow 3 interceptors and launchers to be supplied to Germany, substantially enhancing its air and missile defense capabilities,” the ministry says.
The contract will be signed tomorrow in Germany by Israeli and German defense officials.
In total, the Arrow agreement signed between Israel and Germany is valued at some $6.5 billion, making it the largest-ever Israeli defense export deal.
A Rishon Lezion judge has ordered the man suspected of trying to kidnap a young Ethiopian girl in the southern city to detention for six more days, as police investigate the matter.
A gag order has been imposed on the case. Hebrew outlets reported last night that law enforcement believes the suspect is linked to the disappearance of Haymanut Kasau, an Ethiopian girl who went missing at the age of nine from a Safed absorption center in February last year.
Kasau’s father, Tesfai, told Haaretz yesterday that both the suspect currently in custody and his would-be victim had lived in Safed at the time Haymanut went missing.
The father caught word of the Beersheba kidnapping attempt from an acquaintance, and he informed the Hebrew daily. When he reached out to police, he was told that there were no new developments in his missing daughter’s case.
Meanwhile, police announced last night that Chief Commissioner Danny Levy transferred Kasau’s case to the Lahav 433 major crimes unit.
A source in the unit tells Haaretz that the decision was made the previous week, and has no relation to the Beersheba kidnapping attempt. Nevertheless, detectives in Lahav 433 are investigating both cases at the moment.
On Monday this week, the suspect allegedly knocked on the girl’s door and sat on the couch. He then touched, hugged and grabbed her hand. Before he could continue, the girl opened the door and screamed, alerting neighbors who called the police, she told the outlet.
She further divulged that she knew the man from Safed. “He is a friend of my father’s, who today is in Ethiopia. He was with us, he was nice, everyone knows him. This is the first time he has tried to take me by force like that,” she said.
Syrian Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani spoke on the phone with Ahmed Al Ahmed, the Syrian-born Australian man who disarmed a terrorist during a deadly antisemitic attack at Bondi Beach in Sydney, Anadolu news agency reports.
According to the report, Shaibani told Ahmed that President Ahmed al-Sharaa had asked him to check on his condition and convey his wishes for a speedy recovery. An unpublished video of the phone call obtained by Anadolu is said to show Ahmed thanking both the Syrian president and the foreign minister for their concern.
“In the near future, I will come back to my country and see those beautiful, heroic faces that removed injustice and ended oppression against the people,” Ahmad reportedly said during the call.
Ahmad, 43, originally from the village of al-Nayrab in northwestern Syria, was filmed running toward the attacker and wresting away his gun. The terror attack killed 15 people and wounded dozens at a Jewish community event for Hanukkah.
Holding Australian citizenship, Ahmad was shot and taken to St. George Hospital in southern Sydney. Australian officials, including Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, as well as US President Donald Trump, have praised his actions.
The IDF says it has launched an investigation into the errant mortar that struck Gaza City this afternoon, wounding several Palestinians.
According to the IDF, the mortar was launched by troops as part of military activities on the Israeli side of the ceasefire line.
The mortar “deviated from its target,” the army says, adding that it is aware of reports of casualties.
A Republican candidate for governor of Florida has published a campaign ad pledging to protect the rights of those who criticize Israel.
“Is Netanyahu a war criminal? Did Israel commit genocide? If you say either of those statements in public, you could be convicted of antisemitism. Criticizing a foreign government or any government is always protected under our constitution. Our Founding Fathers fought and died for that right, and I’ll never let anyone steal it from you,” investment firm CEO James Fishback says in a video posted to social media.
“My name is James Fishback, and I’m running for Florida governor. Because Florida is our home, America is our birthright, and we can criticize whom we please,” he says at the end of the ad.
Fishback made some headlines earlier this week for praising supporters of the far-right activist Nick Fuentes, who regularly employs antisemitic and racist rhetoric.
While the 30-year-old Fishback is part of a crowded field of Republicans and is polling very far behind frontrunner US Rep. Byron Donalds, his decision to make criticism of Israel a central message of his campaign points indicates that such views are gradually taking hold in the GOP, particularly among its younger members.
Is Netanyahu a war criminal?
Did Israel commit genocide?My new ad. pic.twitter.com/4dlipfflUl
— James Fishback (@j_fishback) December 16, 2025
ISLAMABAD — Pakistan’s information minister says that his country has been the victim of a coordinated online disinformation campaign following the terror attack at Australia’s Bondi Beach.
Attaullah Tarar accuses “hostile countries,” including India, of spreading false claims that one of the two attackers was a Pakistani national.
Speaking at a news conference in Islamabad, Tarar says Pakistan’s leadership strongly condemns Sunday’s attack, which killed 15 people in an antisemitic shooting targeting Jews celebrating Hanukkah.
The minister says misleading information began circulating almost immediately after the attack, with social media posts falsely identifying one of the suspects as a Pakistani national named Naveed Akram. He says the claims spread rapidly across digital platforms and were repeated by some media outlets without verification.
Tarar said subsequent findings, including confirmation by Indian police, established that one of the attackers, Sajid Akram, was from India, while his 24-year-old son, Naveed Akram — who was also involved — was born in Australia.
The minister says the misinformation appeared to stem from a case of mistaken identity, as a Pakistani man living in Sydney shares the same name as one of the two suspects.
“How do we restore the situation to where it was before the Bondi Beach attack?” Tarar asks, adding that the Pakistani man also named Naveed Akram had released a video denying any involvement and urging the public not to associate him with the attack.
Tara says the Pakistani man was “a victim of a malicious and organized campaign” and that the disinformation effort originated in India.
There is no immediate response from Indian officials.
Tarar calls on media outlets that published the false reports to issue apologies and says Pakistan has not yet decided whether to pursue legal action.
Four Palestinians were wounded by IDF gunfire in Nablus, including one with a serious chest wound, the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Health says.
Footage from the city in the northern West Bank shows troops firing guns and setting off smoke bombs, and locals pelting military vehicles with bullets.
مشاهد من المواجهات العنيفة بين الشبان وقوات الاحتلال في مدينة نابلس. pic.twitter.com/eNyaLUhbdp
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) December 17, 2025
Citing Red Crescent emergency center chief Amid Ahmed, WAFA, the PA’s official news agency, identifies the four wounded as young men, one of whom was shot in the knee while the two others were injured by shrapnel, one of them to the head.
According to WAFA, the IDF raided part of Nablus’s Old City as troops deployed in other areas, where they clashed with locals.
It was unclear from the report if the four wounded people were shot in the same area or in separate incidents.
The IDF does not immediately comment.
The Knesset votes 55-0 to approve, in a preliminary reading, a bill proposed by coalition whip Ofir Katz (Likud) to ensure that time spent in reserve duty during wartime is not counted when calculating the period of eligibility for discharged soldiers to receive academic scholarships.
“This bill seeks to make a necessary amendment that expresses the state’s consistent commitment to its fighters. It is intended to ensure that those who continued to contribute to Israel’s security even after their release will be able to exercise the entitlement that the state granted them – and to be entitled to opening the way to education and personal advancement,” the bill’s explanatory notes state.
The bill will now be forwarded to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee to be prepared for the three additional readings necessary for it to be passed into law.
The Israeli strike reported in Gaza City a short while ago was the result of a misfired mortar, according to a security source.
Reservist troops had fired the mortar on the outskirts of Gaza City, and it deviated by some four kilometers and struck on the Hamas side of the ceasefire line, the source says.
Palestinian media gives a revised preliminary toll of 11 wounded in the strike, citing medical sources. Earlier, it was claimed that at least one person was killed.
The Knesset votes 32-0 to approve in a preliminary reading a bill proposed by Likud MK Sasson Sassi Guetta requiring the Tekuma Directorate, which focuses on rehabilitating Israel’s south, to allocate NIS 20 million ($6.2 million) to the Gaza-adjacent Sdot Negev Regional Council in 2025-2026 in order to meet previous commitments for the rehabilitation of an area hard hit by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.
“Over the past few years, the Council has been given professional assurances and coordination from government officials, but these have not been anchored in a binding legal provision, which does not guarantee certainty, budgetary stability and the required multi-year planning,” the bill’s explanatory notes state.
The Tel Aviv District Court rejects an appeal against the continued detention of three young men arrested on suspicion of assaulting an Arab woman.
The three are to remain in police custody until Sunday.
They are accused of pepper-spraying 30-year-old Hanan Abu Shehadeh while she was driving in Jaffa on Saturday with her two children and mother-in-law.
Police reportedly believe that the attack was racially motivated and planned in advance, after interrogating the suspects.
According to Hebrew reports, the suspects — whose names are barred for publication under a gag order — are so-called hilltop youth with a history of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
Lawmakers vote 48-4 to advance a bill allocating “special resources” for the “development and prosperity” of the Golan Heights, as well as establishing an annual day commemorating the region on the sixth of the Hebrew month of Tevet in a preliminary reading.
The bill, sponsored by a multi-partisan group of lawmakers led by Otzma Yehudit MK Yitzhak Kroizer, does not specify a specific allocation for this development, instead merely stating that “the government shall work to develop and promote the prosperity of the Golan Heights, the Jewish settlement in the Golan Heights, and the welfare of its residents, including agriculture and nature conservation, by allocating special resources.”
Yesh Atid MK Valdimir Beliak accuses Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem of racism, telling lawmakers in the plenum that the senior Likud politician had dismissed him by telling him, “I don’t understand your Hebrew.”
A native Russian speaker, Beliak was born in the Soviet Union and immigrated to Israel in his twenties.
“I represent the Mizrahi,” or Sephardic community, “much more than you do,” he says to Amsalem from the Knesset rostrum following the alleged incident. “I’m proud of my name and my mother tongue and my accent. I immigrated to Israel…without knowing a word of Hebrew. This racism is what, time after time, breaks Israeli society apart.”
“For 10 years, he’s been in the Knesset whining that they ‘discriminate’ against him because he’s Mizrahi. But when it comes to Russian-speaking immigrants — everything is permitted to him,” he adds in a subsequent tweet.
Amsalem has previously accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of racism and “humiliating” Sephardic party supporters after he did not receive the ministerial portfolios he had requested.
Yesh Atid MK Adi Ezuz also slams Amsalem, declaring that he “is a minister who is unworthy of being in his position for even a minute, and as a Mizrahi woman, I’m ashamed that he turns an entire community into a caricature.”
“What did I say to him? That I didn’t understand his Hebrew? World champions at making waves,” replies Amsalem.
An Iranian boxer sentenced to death on charges of membership in an outlawed group is at imminent risk of execution after his request for a retrial was rejected, rights groups and the exiled opposition say.
The World Boxing Council and sporting luminaries including former tennis star Martina Navratilova have called on Iran to spare the life of Mohammad Javad Vafaei-Sani, 30, a silver medalist in the national boxing championship.
Vafaei-Sani was arrested in 2020 over involvement in 2019 protests, charged with membership in the People’s Mujahedin (PMOI, also known by the Persian acronym MEK) organization, which is banned in Iran, and sentenced to death after being convicted of the capital crime of “corruption on earth.”
This week he was informed that his request for a retrial has been rejected by Iran’s Supreme Court, while his case has now been sent to the office for implementation of sentences, the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency (HRANA) says.
Meanwhile, his mother was “unexpectedly” granted a visit to her son held in the Vakilabad prison in the eastern city of Mashhad, it adds. It is common in Iran for relatives to meet convicts for a final visit on the eve of execution.
There is no mention of the case in official media today.
Iran’s Supreme Court has upheld the death sentence of political prisoner Mohammad-Javad Vafaie Sani after rejecting his retrial request. His case has reportedly been sent for sentence implementation.
Read more in HRANA’s report: https://t.co/lGB6VunfE8 pic.twitter.com/L324DJzcMI— HRANA English (@HRANA_English) December 16, 2025
“His life is now in grave danger,” the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the MEK’s political arm, says in a statement, adding that the meeting with his mother “could signal his imminent execution.”
MEK spokesman Shahin Ghobadi tells AFP that Vafaei-Sani was “affiliated” with the group and that over the last half decade the authorities “had, using extensive torture, tried hard to force him to renounce” his support of the MEK.
A joint statement published in November signed by over 20 athletes including Navratilova and British swimmer Sharron Davies urged governments worldwide to act to save his life, saying his execution would be a “warning to every athlete who dares to speak out.”
Activists say that Iran’s clerical authorities are imposing a major crackdown in the wake of the June war with Israel, marked by a surge in the use of capital punishment, with at least 1,426 people hanged this year up to the end of November according to IHR.
Lebanese judge Tarek Bitar headed to Bulgaria today to question a shipowner wanted in connection with a catastrophic 2020 Beirut port blast, a judicial official tells AFP.
The long-awaited questioning comes after a court this month refused Lebanon’s request to extradite Igor Grechushkin, a 48-year-old Russian-Cypriot who was arrested in September at Sofia airport.
Authorities in Lebanon say the August 4, 2020, explosion was triggered by a fire in a warehouse where tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer had been stored haphazardly for years, despite repeated warnings to senior officials.
Beirut authorities have identified Grechushkin as the owner of the Rhosus, the ship that brought the ammonium nitrate into the port.
The blast was one of the world’s largest non-nuclear explosions, destroying swaths of the Lebanese capital, killing more than 220 people and injuring more than 6,500.
The Lebanese judicial official tells AFP on condition of anonymity that “Bitar headed to Sofia on Wednesday” and is expected to question Grechushkin the following day.
The Lebanese embassy in Sofia is arranging for a translator and a clerk to record the minutes of the questioning, which Bulgarian judicial officials are to attend, the official says.
According to Bulgarian prosecutors, Grechushkin is accused by Lebanese judicial authorities of “introducing explosives into Lebanon — a terrorist act that resulted in the death of a large number of people.”
The Lebanese judicial official told AFP that authorities are relying on Grechushkin’s testimony and the information he has about the ammonium nitrate shipment “and the party that ordered and financed it” to determine if Beirut was the ship’s destination.
Bitar resumed his investigation this year as Lebanon’s balance of power shifted following a war between Israel and Hezbollah that weakened the Iran-backed terror group, which had spearheaded a campaign against him.
Yair Golan, chair of the left-wing Democrats party, denounces the “persecution of patriotic officers and soldiers” after lawmakers advance a bill allowing government ministers to demote current and former senior officers in the security services for encouraging refusal to enlist in the IDF.
Such officers would also be penalized for calling for reservists to halt volunteering, or for “slandering” the security services.
The Knesset this afternoon voted to advance in a preliminary reading identical bills by Likud MKs Ariel Kallner and Osher Shekalim, which stipulate that such officers would be stripped of their military rank and privileges, losing their pensions or other benefits granted to veterans of the security services.
“In the upcoming elections we will decide: whether Israel is a Zionist and democratic state of those who serve and fight, or a state of the corrupt and evaders,” Golan posts on X, referring to the government’s efforts to pass a bill exempting yeshiva students from military service.
“We will no longer allow the persecution of patriotic officers and soldiers while the government rewards those who burn draft orders and sanctifies evasion of service. The time has come for a decisive choice between a Zionism of sacrifice and service, and corruption and political wheeling-and-dealing that undermine the country’s security,” he adds.
In its explanatory notes, Kallner’s bill calls out what it describes as “a phenomenon of crossing lines by a handful of former senior officials in the defense establishment,” whom it accuses of “exploiting their status, rank and role as a lever of pressure on the government, while severely harming Israel’s security.”
Both Kallner and Shekalim have explicitly linked the bill to Golan, who suggested that Israel was killing babies in Gaza “as a hobby,” a statement he later said was criticism “directed against the government, not the IDF.”
Palestinian media reports at least one dead in an Israeli airstrike in western Gaza City, on the Hamas side of the ceasefire line.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF.
The Knesset votes 46-35 to advance in a preliminary reading a bill proposed by Likud MK Avichai Boaron aimed at loosening the rules for appointing the heads of government corporations, granting ministers far greater leeway than previously allowed.
The approval of Boaron’s bill comes shortly after lawmakers advanced legislation proposed by Likud MK Nissim Vaturi that would permit associates of ministers to be appointed as heads of government companies without needing “special qualifications.”
Under the current system, ministers nominate candidates from a pool of qualified candidates who are screened and vetted by an independent committee.
Boaron’s bill would allow ministers to directly nominate candidates of their choice, including those who do not have the necessary educational and experience qualifications.
The bill would also narrow the definition of political, personal, and business ties that disqualify a candidate, and allow the relevant ministers to appoint the head of the committee vetting the suitability of their chosen candidate.
“The purpose of the bill is to change the mechanism for selecting directors in government companies, so that instead of the directors being selected from a closed list by the minister to whom that government company is subordinate, the appointment of directors will be carried out by the ministers subject to uniform criteria to be determined by law and regulations” and approved by the review committee, the bill’s explanatory notes state, adding that the proposal is aimed at ensuring “representation of people from the social and geographical periphery in government companies.”
In a statement last month, the Attorney General’s Office slammed Boaron’s bill, declaring that it would “turn government companies into a pool of positions for the appointment of insiders.”
Such changes “harm the professionalism of the companies’ management and will harm the perception of their credibility and professionalism in the competitive business environment in Israel and abroad,” causing economic damage, the statement said.
Boaron’s bill is identical to a proposal by Regional Cooperation Minister David Amsalem, who has been pushing to overhaul the current appointments system. Amsalem’s efforts led then-Government Companies Authority director Michal Rosenbaum to claim in 2023 that he was working to make illegitimate and political appointments at dozens of government companies.
In response, Amsalem defended his push to fire Rosenbaum and his attempts to appoint personal acquaintances to senior positions in government companies, saying he preferred to tap candidates he knows well.
Boaron’s bill will now move to the Knesset House Committee to determine which committee should prepare it for the next three readings necessary for it to become law.
British police say they will take tougher action against people who use placards and chants to target the Jewish community, saying recent violent incidents had changed the context around such protests.
The move comes days after 15 people were killed in a mass terror shooting at Australia’s Bondi Beach targeting a Hanukkah event, and following an attack at a synagogue in Manchester in northern England on Yom Kippur in October in which two Jewish worshipers were killed.
“We know communities are concerned about placards and chants such as ‘globalize the intifada,’ and those using it at future protests or in a targeted way should expect the Met and GMP to take action,” London’s Metropolitan Police and Greater Manchester Police say in a joint statement.
The statement continues, “Violent acts have taken place, the context has changed – words have meaning and consequence. We will act decisively and make arrests.”
Jewish groups have been calling for tougher action over the language used at pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel protests, while the Community Security Trust (CST), which works to provide security to protect British Jews, says antisemitic incidents have been soaring in Britain.
“Is there a connection between this embrace of a call for death in the name of Palestinian rights, and people inflicting actual death apparently in the name of the same cause? As soon as you ask the question, the answer seems obvious,” Dave Rich, the CST’s director of policy, wrote this week.
An Iranian hacker group says it has broken into former prime minister Naftali Bennett’s cellphone, according to Hebrew media reports.
The Ynet outlet quotes the Iranian “Handala” hackers’ group as saying that it infiltrated the politician’s phone in what it has dubbed “Operation Octopus.”
“You once prided yourself on being a leading light of cybersecurity, and displayed your expertise to the world,” Ynet quotes the group as saying, in an apparent reference to Bennett’s background as a co-founder of a cybersecurity company.
“And even so, how ironic that your iPhone 13 fell so easily into the hands of Handala,” the statement continues. “Despite all of your pride and boasting, your digital fortress is nothing more than a paper wall waiting to be broken.”
Bennett has referred to Iran as “the head of the octopus” of forces threatening Israel in the region.
The former premier is seen as the most credible challenger to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in next year’s elections.
The Knesset votes 49-35 to advance a bill that would require public institutions to install mezuzahs, and would grant special protections to conducting Jewish Orthodox religious practices, such as laying tefillin, in public spaces, including criminalizing any interference with them.
The bill, whose terms have sparked outrage among liberal critics, was put forward by Likud MK Galit Distel-Atbaryan and Otzma Yehudit MK Yitzhak Kroizer. It is titled “Realization of Jewish Identity in the Public Sphere.”
The bill will now be sent to committee for preparation for the first of three readings needed for it to pass into law.
Public rituals such as laying tefillin and prayer in public spaces would be legally protected according to the new legislation, and any interference, even minor bureaucratic obstacles, might be considered a criminal offense.
Some of these practices have become battleground issues, most notably in September 2023, when Orthodox worshipers defied a municipal ruling and set up gender dividers at mass Yom Kippur prayer services in Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Square, sparking an angry response from liberal activists and highlighting the deep societal tensions over public expressions of religious practice and gender segregation.
The most controversial clause of the bill calls for civil judges to pass exams on halacha, or Jewish law, in order to serve on the bench in secular courts, and designates the Grand Rabbinical Court the sole authority for disputes on the subject, leaving no avenue for appeal. It also appears to grant members of the Chief Rabbinate — who are not experts in Israeli civil law — veto power over the judicial appointments.
That clause is opposed by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation and is likely to be removed during committee deliberations.
“Historically, whether in exile or in the Land of Israel, regimes that sought to restrict the Jews and undermine the existence of the Jewish people began by persecuting external expressions of Jewish identity,” the bill’s explanatory notes state, arguing that “history has taught us that interference with the donning of tefillin, wrapping oneself in a tallit, affixing a mezuzah, or studying Torah is the first step on a terrifying slippery slope whose end is violent and murderous oppression.”
“The State of Israel has no right to exist if it does not allow Jews to fulfill their obligations toward the Creator of the World and to live according to their faith openly and without fear,” it adds.
Pushing back against the bill on the grounds that it smacks of religious coercion, Yesh Atid MK Meirav Ben Ari argues that it is similar to the government’s “Hametz Law” allowing hospitals to ban leavened products prohibited by halacha on Passover, which she says actually led to a backlash against observance.
Ben Ari rips up a copy of the bill. Responding to Ben Ari, Distel-Atbaryan states that several clauses will be removed as the bill progresses.
Police have arrested another suspect in connection with last month’s large-scale arson attack by extremist settlers against Palestinians in the northern West Bank.
He is suspected of being one of dozens of masked assailants who embarked on a rampage in the Beit Lid area, setting fire to cars, destroying buildings and attacking Palestinian residents with clubs and stones.
The suspect was detained by IDF troops alongside two others shortly after the attack. The soldiers handcuffed the three and loaded them into a military vehicle, but the vehicle came under attack by rioting settlers, who managed to free him and another of the suspects.
Police say that a special task force in the West Bank District, which was established last month to combat Jewish nationalist violence, has been conducting an “intensive investigation” to track down the suspect. He was located and arrested Monday after a month on the run.
The suspect was brought to court yesterday and will remain in custody until tomorrow.
Last month, prosecutors filed terror charges against another suspected perpetrator of the arson attack, who is still in custody awaiting trial. He was indicted on charges of arson, aggravated sabotage, malicious damage and intentional sabotage of a vehicle.
One patient remains in critical condition after being injured in the terror shooting targeting a Jewish event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, local media report.
The gunmen who attacked the event killed 15 people and injured dozens.
Two additional people are in a “critical but stable” condition, according to the tally in local media. In total, 17 people who were injured in the attack remain hospitalized.
The Knesset votes 50-37 to advance in a preliminary reading a bill proposed by United Torah Judaism MK Yaakov Asher that aims to amend the Law for the Promotion of Construction in Preferred Areas in order to give preference to members of the ultra-Orthodox community.
The legislation would add a Haredi representative to the National Committee for Planning and Construction of Preferred Areas, which is charged with streamlining the planning and approvals process for large-scale residential construction plans. The bill states that this will “help improve planning for the Haredi population” due to its special needs, such as the inclusion of sukkah balconies in apartments and public spaces for synagogues and additional schools.
Addressing the committee, Asher argues that appointing a Haredi representative who is “familiar with the planning nature of this population” is necessary.
According to the Israel Democracy Institute, “although 33% of ultra-Orthodox families live below the poverty line, 75% own an apartment — a rate higher than that of the non-Haredi public.”
Pushing back on the bill, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid tells lawmakers that “many people in the State of Israel feel they’ve been given up on” by the state. He alludes to legislation that would largely perpetuate the longstanding exemption of Haredi men from IDF conscription.
“Today the army submitted a document saying it lacks 1,300 young officers… Hundreds of officers announced they are leaving because they too feel they’ve been given up on. Today Central Bureau of Statistics data was published showing that for the first time in the country’s history there is… negative migration of academics because they say, ‘Okay, they’ve given up on us, they don’t want us here.’ There is a government here saying, ‘Take a hike, leave, you’re not wanted,’ so they leave,” he says.
“So I came up here just to make sure there’s been no misunderstanding of any kind,” he continues. “You’ve given up on all of us. You don’t want shared life with us?… You don’t want to reach any agreements? You want to do whatever you want and have us disappear from your lives? It’s tragic.”
The Knesset votes 48-37 to advance in a preliminary reading a bill proposed by Religious Zionism MK Simcha Rothman that aims to strip the Supreme Court president of the authority to determine which justices hear each case.
Instead, judicial panels would be determined by an automated computerized system.
The bill will now be sent to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee for preparation for the first of three readings needed for it to pass into law.
Rothman, one of the key architects of the government’s judicial overhaul agenda, argued in the explanatory notes to his bill that the legislation is necessary because the makeup of a judicial panel can purportedly predetermine the outcome of an appeal or petition.
Under the current system, the overwhelming majority of judicial panels established for Supreme Court appeals and High Court petitions are already formed by random assignment via computer through the court secretariat, although the Supreme Court president can, and on occasion does, choose individual judges for cases of particular importance.
The bill, if passed into law, would amend the Courts Law of 1984 and remove the clause authorizing the Supreme Court president to determine which judges preside over which cases. Instead, the law would state that the composition of judicial panels will be determined in “a computerized way without human involvement.”
According to the Haaretz daily, the Courts Administration came out against the legislation, warning that the change it seeks to implement would hinder the efficiency of the judicial system.
According to Guy Lurie, a researcher at the Israel Democracy Institute’s legal department, there are only a handful of cases every year in which the Supreme Court president decides who will sit on a judicial panel.
Such cases often involve matters of significant importance to the public, but even in such situations, the Supreme Court president does not handpick judges for the panel but rather makes appointments based on seniority.
In other circumstances, the Supreme Court president can also assign judges to a case based on the workloads facing the different judges at the time the case is brought to the court.
The Knesset votes 47-37 to advance in a preliminary reading a bill proposed by Likud MK Ariel Kallner that would penalize senior officers in the security services for encouraging refusal to enlist in the IDF, calling for reservists to halt volunteering, or “slandering” the security services.
Such officers would be stripped of their military rank and privileges.
An identical bill sponsored by Likud MK Osher Shekalim passes its preliminary reading 48-37.
The bill states that if the relevant minister finds that current or former officers in the IDF, Shin Bet, Mossad, Israel Police and other security agencies have engaged in such behavior, they may be demoted or lose their pensions or other benefits granted to veterans of the security services.
In its explanatory notes, the bill calls out what it describes as “a phenomenon of crossing lines by a handful of former senior officials in the defense establishment” whom it accuses of “exploiting their status, rank and role as a lever of pressure on the government, while severely harming Israel’s security.”
Addressing the plenum ahead of the vote, Kallner and Shekalim single out several former senior officials by name, including former defense minister Moshe Ya’alon, who has claimed that Israel had carried out “ethnic cleansing” in the northern Gaza Strip, ex-IDF military advocate general Maj. Gen. Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi, who admitted to leaking a video that purported to show troops severely abusing a Gazan detainee, and The Democrats chairman and former major general Yair Golan, who suggested that Israel was killing babies in Gaza “as a hobby.”
They “deserve to be demoted to the rank of private,” says Shekalim. “Israeli citizens should not be paying the salaries of those who slander them.”
After Kallner’s bill was approved by the Ministerial Committee for Legislation in July, Golan called it a “an unimportant law by an unimportant MK who wants to deny me rights.”
The Knesset votes 46-40 to advance a bill proposed by Likud MK Nissim Vaturi that would permit associates of ministers to be appointed as heads of government companies without needing “special qualifications.”
The bill, approved in a preliminary reading, will now be sent to the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee for preparation for the first of three readings needed for it to pass into law.
Under the current system, the Senior Appointments Advisory Committee will only recommend the appointment of an individual associated with a minister to head a government firm if they have “special qualifications” — which are not required of other candidates.
In its explanatory notes, Vaturi’s bill states that it “is intended to correct an injustice of many years that harms the freedom of occupation and equality of a candidate who is politically active.”
Over the summer, the Attorney General’s Office expressed opposition to the bill, with Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara arguing in a letter to Justice Minister Yariv Levin that the current law protects against a candidate being appointed “due to his connections.”
The new bill, she wrote, “seriously harms the integrity of appointments to government companies, as well as appointments to various public corporations.”
The attorney general added that the bill was part of a range of legislative steps that “politicize” the civil service, thereby harming its professionalism and quality.
Naveed Akram, the surviving gunman who perpetrated the terror attack at a Jewish event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, killing 15 people, faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if convicted, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Krissy Barrett says in a statement.
Akram, who was seriously wounded while carrying out the attack on Sunday, woke from a coma recently and was charged today with 59 offenses, including terror charges and 15 counts of murder. The other gunman, Akram’s father Sajid, was killed during the attack.
Barrett says the investigation into the massacre is continuing and sends words of reassurance to the Jewish community. She says there is “no ongoing threat.”
“It is hard not to be moved by the weight of grief that is hanging over Sydney,” she says. “It is a reminder of the cruel and hateful act perpetrated against the Jewish community. As AFP commissioner, I say to Jewish Australians, you do not and you should not share this grief alone.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by phone with the father-in-law of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, who was among the 15 people murdered by two terrorists in the shooting targeting a Jewish event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday, blaming the attack on what he described as the Australian government’s “lax policies” in combating antisemitism, the Prime Minister’s Office says in a statement.
Netanyahu “expressed his condolences” to Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, a Chabad emissary and head of the rabbinical court in Sydney, “and to all the bereaved families, and wished a full recovery to the wounded,” the PMO states. He also spoke with Arsen Ostrovsky, who was injured in the attack weeks after moving to Sydney to direct the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council office in the city, the PMO adds.
During the calls, the premier said “that these criminal acts are the result of rampant antisemitism in the face of lax policies by the country’s authorities and the Australian government, which is obligated to act immediately and use all available tools to eradicate terrorism and restore security to Jewish communities,” according to the readout.
Fifteen Israeli Air Force reservists who were said to be “suspended” from being called up for reserve duty since April, after they signed a letter calling for a deal to release the hostages held in Gaza and end the war there, will now be permitted to return to duty.
The story was first reported by the Ynet outlet.
The IDF denies that any reservists had actually been suspended, saying that “decisions regarding the calling up of reservists for service were and remain subject to orders and the discretion of commanders, with operational readiness and unit cohesion at the top of the priorities.”
The military adds, “Reservists who signed the letter will be returned to service in accordance with the decisions of their direct commanders, based solely on these criteria, and therefore, there is no change in policy.”
The letter published in April did not call for a general refusal to serve, but instead urged the government to prioritize the release of hostages over the continuation of the war in Gaza, which the signatories argued at the time served “political and personal interests” rather than national security.
After the letter was published, the military said it would dismiss all 60 active duty reservists who signed it, saying soldiers cannot use the “Israeli Air Force brand” to protest political matters.
However, ultimately, none were dismissed from duty, but instead, the 15 in question were not called up by their commanders for service.
Norman Podhoretz, the Jewish intellectual and boastful, hardline editor and author whose books, essays and stewardship of Commentary magazine marked a political and deeply personal break from the left and made him a leader of the neo-conservative movement, has died. He was 95.
Podhoretz died “peacefully and without pain” Tuesday night, his son John Podhoretz confirmed in a tribute on Commentary’s website. His cause of death was not immediately released.
“He was a man of great wit and a man of deep wisdom and he lived an astonishing and uniquely American life,” John Podhoretz, now Commentary’s editor, wrote. “His knowledge extended beyond literature to Jewish history, Jewish thinking, Jewish faith, and the Hebrew Bible, with all of which he was intimately familiar and ever fascinated. He made the life of the mind a joyous sport.”
Norman Podhoretz was among the last of the so-called “New York intellectuals” of the mid-20th century, a famously contentious and heavily Jewish circle that at various times included Norman Mailer, Hannah Arendt, Susan Sontag and Lionel Trilling.
As a young man, Podhoretz longed to join them. In middle age, he departed. Like Irving Kristol, Gertrude Himmelfarb and other Jewish founding neo-conservatives, Podhoretz began turning from the liberal politics he shared with so many peers, and helped reshape the national dialogue in the 1960s and after.
The son of immigrants, Podhoretz was 30 when he was named editor-in-chief of Commentary in 1960, and years later transformed the once-liberal magazine into an essential forum for conservatives. Two future US ambassadors to the United Nations, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeane Kirkpatrick, received their appointments in part because of essays they published in Commentary that called for a more assertive foreign policy.
Despised by former allies, Podhoretz found new friends all the way to the White House, from president Ronald Reagan, a reader of Commentary, to president George W. Bush, who in 2004 awarded Podhoretz the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor, and praised him as a “man of “fierce intellect” who never “tailored his opinion to please others.”
Relatives in Syria of Ahmed al-Ahmed, 43, the Muslim fruit vendor lauded for disarming one of the terrorists who attacked a Hanukkah event in Sydney, call him a hero and express their pride.
Ahmed left his hometown in Syria’s northwest province of Idlib nearly 20 years ago to seek work in Australia. His uncle, Mohammed al-Ahmed, recognized him from footage circulating online.
“We learned through social media. I called his father and he told me that it was Ahmed. Ahmed is a hero, we’re proud of him. Syria in general is proud of him,” the uncle tells Reuters.
The man said his nephew left Syria in 2006 after completing a degree at Aleppo University. He hasn’t been back since.
“Since he was young, he was gallant and a hero,” his uncle said, describing him as a happy and passionate person.
“He acted impulsively without thinking who the people were that were being killed, without knowing their religion, if they were Muslim or Christian or Jewish. That’s what made him jump up and carry out this heroic act.”
Ahmed, who now holds Australian citizenship and has two daughters, remains in a Sydney hospital with gunshot wounds from the terror attack, which killed 15 people and injured dozens.
A GoFundMe campaign set up for him has raised more than $1.5 million.
Back in Syria, the Ahmed family home remains in ruins from the country’s 14-year civil war. Piles of smashed cinderblocks ring the concrete carcass of the two-story house, whose walls are punctured by shelling.
“This is Ahmed’s father’s home. It got destroyed during the war. Bombing, bombing from planes, missiles – every type of weapon,” Ahmed’s cousin, who is also named Mohammad al-Ahmed, tells Reuters.
He said his cousin “was the reason that many innocent people who did nothing wrong were saved.”
“He will prove to the world that Muslims are peacemakers, not warmongers,” says Ahmed.
The three suspects in an attack on a pregnant Arab woman are appealing the extension of their remand, after a Tel Aviv judge ordered them held in custody until Sunday.
“At this point, no objective evidence has been displayed that supports the complainants’ version. I will continue to fight for my clients’ innocence,” says the suspects’ attorney Assaf Gonen, who works for the right-wing legal aid organization Honenu.
The three are suspected of assaulting 30-year-old Hanan Abu Shehadeh while she was driving in Jaffa’s Ajami neighborhood on Saturday with her two children and mother-in-law. The assailants allegedly pepper-sprayed Abu Shehahdeh, shouted racist epithets at her and spat on her daughter.
Police initially suspected that Abu Shehadeh was attacked due to a fight over parking between her and the suspects. After having interrogated the three, police now believe the assault to have been racially motivated and planned in advance. According to Hebrew outlets, police say the suspects are part of the hilltop youth, a loose network of Jewish extremists with a history of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
The IDF says it can confirm that a drone strike it carried out yesterday in southern Lebanon killed a Hezbollah operative.
The strike was carried out near the town of Taybeh.
According to the military, the operative was involved in collecting intelligence on Israeli troops in southern Lebanon and was involved in efforts to restore Hezbollah infrastructure in the area.
“The terrorist’s activities constituted a violation of the understandings between Israel and Lebanon,” the IDF adds.
צה"ל ממשיך בסיכולים ממוקדים בדרום לבנון: חוסל מחבל מארגון הטרור חיזבאללה
אתמול, צה"ל תקף וחיסל מחבל של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב א-טייבה שבדרום לבנון.
המחבל שחוסל פעל לאיסוף מודיעין על כוחות צה"ל בדרום לבנון ועסק בניסיונות שיקום תשתיות של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה.
פעולותיו של… pic.twitter.com/x9RTuRhRWP
— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) December 17, 2025
Prosecutors will soon indict a young man suspected of membership in ISIS and maintaining contact with a foreign agent linked to the terror group, police announce.
The suspect, 20-year-old Kenan Azaiza, resides in the northern Arab town of Daburiyya. He was arrested alongside a second suspect, a resident of Acre, whom police do not name.
During his interrogation by Shin Bet and police investigators, it emerged that Azaiza had sworn loyalty to ISIS and expressed willingness to carry out attacks on Israeli security forces, police say. He also learned how to create pipe bombs and other explosives.
While in contact with the foreign agent, the pair made plans to travel to an enemy country in order to train under ISIS, police add.
They were arrested in recent weeks.
Azaiza is set to be indicted in the Nazareth District Court by Northern District prosecutors.
The announcement comes days after terrorists said to be linked to ISIS attacked a Jewish event in Sydney, killing 15.
Rabbi Yaakov Levitan is remembered for his unassuming nature and service to the Sydney Jewish community as he is laid to rest.
Levitan was one of the 15 people killed in the terror attack on a Hanukkah celebration at Sydney’s Bondi Beach on Sunday.
Levitan, 39, was a Chabad emissary and the secretary of the Sydney Beth Din religious court. He worked at the BINA Center, a Jewish educational institution in Sydney.
In remarks delivered at his funeral, Rabbi Michoel Gourarie, BINA’s director, notes that Jewish law “limits excessive eulogies” on Hanukkah. Gourarie says that rule would have suited Levitan.
“He absolutely hated when people made a fuss about him,” Gourarie says. “If someone would be getting up to give him a compliment in public, he would literally run out of the room.”
Gourarie continues, “So I know that he will not only not mind but will actually be happy with our focusing on inspirational messages and perhaps limiting the full expression… of our complete and devastating heartache.”
Gourarie recalls Levitan’s devotion to his family as well as the wider Sydney Jewish community. The Chabad movement said he is survived by his wife and their four children, aged six to 16.
“He took his Judaism and Jewish law… so seriously,” Gourarie says. “He was such a good husband, an amazing and caring father, and a great friend, my friend, your friend and so many people’s friends.”
Gourarie says that much of Levitan’s work was “behind the scenes” and that he “did it so quietly with such humility.”
“We saw a humble person, a genuinely good person, an unsung hero taken from us,” he says.
His funeral follows that of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, a Chabad emissary in Sydney who was also killed in the attack and was laid to rest earlier today.
Israeli settlers torched a vehicle and sprayed graffiti in a West Bank village near Ramallah overnight, according to Palestinian media.
The suspected crime took place in Ein Yabrud.
Images show graffiti reading “Stop chasing Jews” and “Avi Bluth don’t mess with us.” That statement refers to the commander of the IDF’s Central Command, who has recently denounced the settler violence that has spiked in recent months.
Israeli police are expected to investigate the incident. There are no immediate reports of arrests.
Vandalism in Palestinian villages by Jewish extremists has become a common occurrence in the West Bank.
مصادر محلية: مليشيات المستوطنين تهاجم بلدة عين يبرود شرق رام الله فجر اليوم، وتحرق مركبات وتخط شعارات معادية. pic.twitter.com/vZJS6YhstF
— شبكة قدس الإخبارية (@qudsn) December 17, 2025
The Philippines says there is no evidence that the country was being used for terrorist training, a day after it was revealed that the men who committed the terror shooting at Sydney’s Bondi Beach had spent November on a southern island known for Islamist insurgencies.
President Ferdinand Marcos’s Spokeswoman Claire Castro says at a press briefing that he “strongly rejects the sweeping statement and the misleading characterization of the Philippines as the ISIS training hotspot.”
“No evidence has been presented to support claims that the country was used for terrorist training,” she adds, reading from a National Security Council statement. “There is no validated report or confirmation that individuals involved in the Bondi Beach incident received any form of training in the Philippines.”
On Tuesday, the country’s immigration office confirmed that Sajid Akram and his son Naveed, who killed 15 people and wounded dozens of others at a Hanukkah celebration on Bondi Beach, entered the country on November 1 and headed for the southern province of Davao.
The island of Mindanao, where Davao is located, has a long history of Islamist insurgencies against central government rule.
Australian authorities are investigating whether the two men met with extremists during the trip.
The Philippine military, however, says that armed Muslim groups still operating on Mindanao had been largely degraded in the years since the siege of Marawi. The five-month battle for the city that pitted government forces against pro-Islamic State Maute and Abu Sayyaf militants claimed more than 1,000 lives and displaced hundreds of thousands of people.
“We have not recorded any major terrorist operations or training activities… since the beginning of 2024,” Philippine military spokeswoman Colonel Francel Padilla says at a morning press briefing.
The 59 charges filed against Naveed Akram, the surviving gunman in the Bondi Beach terror attack, include 15 counts of murder, one count of committing a terrorist act and one count of displaying the symbol of a prohibited terror group, local outlets report.
The attack on Sunday, which targeted a Hanukkah event, killed 15 and wounded dozens.
Akram, 24, was charged today after waking from a coma. He was critically injured during the shooting he carried out with his father, Sajid, who was killed while committing the attack.
Akram is also charged with 40 counts of causing wounding or grievous bodily harm to a person with intent to murder, local publications report. He also faces one count of discharging a firearm and another related to placing explosives.
Following the attack, Australian officials said the gunmen were inspired by the ISIS terror group and had ISIS flags as well as bombs in their car.
“Police will allege in court the man engaged in conduct that caused death, serious injury and endangered life to advance a religious cause and cause fear in the community,” police said in a statement, according to the Sydney Morning Herald.
A man has been arrested at Sydney Airport for allegedly going on an antisemitic rant at another passenger on a flight, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
Australian Federal Police arrested the man, 19, following an overnight Virgin Australia flight from Bali, Indonesia, to Sydney, the publication says. Officers met the flight when it landed in the morning.
“There is no current or impending threat to the community,” the spokesperson said, according to the Morning Herald. “Further comment will be made at an appropriate time.”
The arrest occurs days after a terror shooting targeting a Jewish event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach killed 15 and injured dozens.
The funeral of Rabbi Yaakov Levitan, who was killed in the terror shooting targeting a Hanukkah event at Bondi Beach on Sunday, begins in Sydney.
Levitan, 39, was a Chabad emissary and the secretary of the Sydney Beth Din religious court. He worked at the BINA Center, a Jewish educational institution in Sydney.
The Chabad movement said he is survived by his wife and their four children, aged six to 16.
His funeral follows that of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, a Chabad emissary in Sydney who was also killed in the attack and was laid to rest earlier today.
Police in Australia say they have charged Naveed Akram, who is accused of opening fire on a Jewish event on Sydney’s Bondi Beach, with 59 offenses, including a terror charge.
The terror attack at a Hanukkah celebration on Sunday killed 15 people and injured dozens.
Akram, 24, who was critically wounded and woke from a coma yesterday, carried out the attack with his father, Sajid, who was killed at the scene.
Akram declines to be interviewed by detectives, the Sydney Morning Herald reports.
The Australian state parliament of New South Wales, where the terror attack on the Jewish event at Bondi Beach occurred, will reconvene next week to discuss urgent legislation on gun control, Premier Chris Minns says.
The parliament will also consider protest reforms.
A Jewish man is reportedly knifed in the chest in an altercation in Brooklyn.
Video released by the Crown Heights Shomrim neighborhood watch group shows a man in a black jacket lunging at the chest of another man.
The local COL Live news site, focused on the Chabad community in Crown Heights, and Yaacov Behrman, a Crown Heights community leader, say the victim is Jewish.
The NYPD tells The Times of Israel that the incident took place at around 4:10 p.m. at Kingston Ave. and Lincoln Pl. in Crown Heights.
Officers responding to the scene found a 35-year-old man with a stab wound to the chest. The injured man was transported to the hospital in stable condition, the NYPD says.
There are no arrests and an investigation is underway, the NYPD says.
The NYPD does not address a question about whether the incident is being investigated as a hate crime.
The incident comes after youths from Chabad were assaulted Monday on a subway.
WASHINGTON — US President Donald Trump tells guests at the White House Hanukkah party that Congress “is becoming antisemitic,” as the “Jewish lobby” is no longer the strongest in Washington.
Trump initially refers to all of Congress, but then highlights the Squad of progressive Democrats, as the White House has downplayed growing criticism of Israel in the Republican Party.
“My father would tell me, the most powerful lobby that there is in this country is the Jewish Lobby. It’s the Israeli lobby. It’s not that way anymore,” Trump reflects, in a new version of comments he has made before.
“I will always be a friend and a champion to the Jewish people,” Trump says to a cheering, albeit relatively smaller crowd at the annual gathering due to the construction of the White House East Room.
After the father of slain former hostage Omer Neutra politely corrected Trump for saying that he had gotten all remaining hostages out of Gaza at an earlier Hanukkah reception of the White House, the president again mistakenly claims to have done so. The body of Ran Gvili is still held in Gaza.
Trump begins his remarks by lamenting the terror attack targeting Jews at a Hanukkah celebration in Australia on Sunday.
“All nations must stand together against the evil forces of radical Islamic terrorism, and we’re doing that,” Trump says.
He then proceeds to give shoutouts to various supporters in the crowd, asking some of them to offer some remarks at the podium.
Conservative talk show host Mark Levin calls Trump “the first Jewish president.”
Trump next calls on GOP megadonor Miriam Adelson to speak, quipping that she should do so quickly because “$250 million doesn’t buy what it used to.
Adelson tells the crowd that she spoke with lawyer Alan Dershowitz, who told her it would be legal for Trump to run for a third term.
Trump then rattles off his pro-Israel measures as president, including recognizing its sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
“I sold the rights to the Golan Heights to Israel… It could be worth trillions of dollars,” he says.
Continuing his eulogy, the father-in-law of Rabbi Eli Schlanger urges Jews not to be afraid to publicly celebrate their faith in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack.
“That’s not the answer,” says Chabad Rabbi Yehoram Ulman. “We can never, ever allow them” to succeed in scaring us, he urges. “Every time they try something, we become greater and stronger.”
In that light, Ulman says that “on the final night of Hanukkah… we’re going to gather at Bondi Beach and we’re going to show the world that the Jewish people are unbeatable.”
SYDNEY — A man accused of perpetrating Australia’s deadliest mass shooting in three decades will be charged later on Wednesday, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says.
The alleged father-and-son perpetrators opened fire on a Jewish Hanukkah celebration on Sydney’s iconic Bondi Beach on Sunday, in a terror attack that shook the nation and intensified fears of rising antisemitism and violent extremism.
Sajid Akram, 50, was shot dead by police at the scene, while his 24-year-old son, named in local media as Naveed, emerged from a coma on Wednesday after also being shot by police.
“He will be charged formally, if he hasn’t been so already, I would expect that will take place over the coming hours,” Albanese says in a podcast interview.
Investigators expect to question the son once medication wears off and legal counsel is present, New South Wales Police Commissioner Mal Lanyon says. He remains in a Sydney hospital under heavy police guard.
Addressing the funeral for Rabbi Eli Schlanger, one of the speakers compares the deadly terror attack targeting a Hanukkah event at Sydney’s Bondi Beach to the Hamas-led invasion of southern Israel in October 2023.
“Our community suffered our own October 7. That’s what this is,” Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, Schlanger’s father-in-law, tells mourners at Chabad of Bondi Synagogue.
“So much pain, so much tragedy,” adds Ulman, noting the 15 people killed and dozens wounded in the attack.
Speaking about his son-in-law Schlanger, Ulman says, “it’s the closest ones [to God] who are taken.”
WASHINGTON — After US President Donald Trump declares at a White House Hanukkah party that he secured the release of all 28 deceased hostages who were left in Gaza at the start of the October ceasefire, he calls the parents of former slain hostage Omer Neutra to the stage, who politely correct him that Ran Gvili’s body is still being held in the enclave.
Trump was speaking at the first of two Hanukkah receptions being held at the White House today.
1 \ During the White House Hanukkah party President Trump called to the stage Ronen & Orna Neutra, the parents of U.S.-Israeli deceased hostage Captain Omer Neutra. Trump said all 28 deceased hostages have been returned. Ronen Neutra told the president one deceased hostage – Ran… pic.twitter.com/34bJonwaya
— Barak Ravid (@BarakRavid) December 17, 2025
Australia is set to hold the first funerals for victims of the Bondi Beach mass terror shooting, with huge crowds expected to grieve two rabbis slain in the attack.
Sajid Akram and his son Naveed opened fire on a Jewish festival at the famed surf beach on Sunday evening, killing 15 people and wounding dozens more, according to authorities.
Among the victims are a 10-year-old girl, two Holocaust survivors, and a married couple shot dead as they tried to thwart the attack.
Father-of-five Eli Schlanger, known as the “Bondi rabbi,” will be the first mourned in a service at Chabad of Bondi Synagogue scheduled for 11 a.m. local time. Mourners cry as they wheel a coffin carrying his remains into the synagogue.
“Anyone who knew him knew that he was the very best of us,” says Alex Ryvchin from the Executive Council of Australian Jewry.
The Chabad of Bondi Synagogue will then hold a second funeral for 39-year-old rabbi Yaakov Levitan in the afternoon.
Levitan was a father of four renowned for his charitable work, the Chabad movement said.
Large crowds are expected to pack the synagogues to pay their respects.
Rav Yaakov Halevi Levitin has been identified as one of the victims of the Bondi Beach shooting.
A rabbi and community leader cut down in his prime in the name of hatred and antisemitism.
Such a senseless tragedy.
May his memory be a blessing. pic.twitter.com/StdfANZAvF
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) December 14, 2025
After Palestinian media reported a series of Israeli airstrikes in eastern Gaza City, the IDF says it is conducting routine activity to demolish Hamas infrastructure in the area.
The activity is taking place on the Israeli side of the Gaza ceasefire line.
Amid the ongoing ceasefire, the IDF has been working to destroy Hamas tunnels and other sites used by the terror group in the Israeli-controlled parts of the Strip.
Palestinian media reports a series of Israeli strikes in eastern Gaza City.
It is not immediately clear if the strikes are taking place on the Israeli or the Hamas side of the Gaza ceasefire line.
There is no immediate comment from the IDF on the reported strikes.
Rob Reiner’s son Nick Reiner will be charged with two counts of first-degree murder in the killing of his parents, Los Angeles County prosecutors said Tuesday.
Nick Reiner, 32, will be charged in the death of the 78-year-old actor and director Rob Reiner and his wife Michele Singer Reiner, District Attorney Nathan Hochman announced at a news conference with LA Police Chief Jim McDonnell.
Prosecutors plan to file the charges, two counts of first-degree murder and special circumstances of multiple murders, later Tuesday. They will also include a special allegation that he used a dangerous weapon, a knife.
The announcement of the charges comes two days after the couple was found dead from apparent stab wounds in their home in the upscale Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles. Nick Reiner was arrested on suspicion of the killing and jailed hours later.
Nick Reiner had been expected to make an initial court appearance earlier today, but his attorney Alan Jackson says he was not brought from the jail to the courthouse for medical reasons and the appearance will not come before Wednesday.
Jackson does not comment further on the case, and Nick Reiner has not yet entered a plea.
