Feb. 16: Visiting Israel, US senator says decision on Iran is ‘weeks, not months’ away

Australia rules out repatriating citizens from Syrian camp

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese says his government will not repatriate Australians living in a Syrian camp that holds families of suspected Islamic State militants.

“We have a very firm view that we won’t be providing assistance or repatriation,” Albanese tells ABC News.

Thirty-four Australians released on Monday from a camp in northern Syria were returned to the detention centre due to “technical reasons,” two sources tell Reuters.

3 killed, including suspect, in shooting during Rhode Island youth hockey game

Hockey parents and a player speak to a police officer outside of the Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, after a shooting at the ice rink on February 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Stockwell)

Three people, including the suspect, were fatally shot during a Rhode Island youth hockey game Monday, authorities say.

Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves tell reporters that three other victims are hospitalized in critical condition.

“It appears that this was a targeted event, that it may be a family dispute,” she says. Goncalves does not provide details about the suspect or the ages of those who were killed, though she says it appears that both victims were adults.

Authorities are continuing to try to piece together what happened and speak with witnesses, she says.

The shooting happened at Dennis M. Lynch Arena in Pawtucket, a few miles outside Providence.

Outside the arena, tearful families and high school hockey players still in uniform can be seen hugging before they boarded a bus to leave the area. Roads surrounding the arena have been shut down as a heavy police presence remained and helicopters flew overhead.

Pawtucket is nestled just north of Providence and right under the Massachusetts state border. A town of just under 80,000, Pawtucket had up until recently been known as the home to Hasbro’s headquarters.

Lebanon says next phase of Hezbollah disarmament to take around 4 months

A member of the Lebanese military stands guard during a visit by Lebanon's prime minister to the heavily-damaged southern village of Kfar Kila, near the border with Israel on February 8, 2026. (Rabih Daher/AFP)

Lebanon’s government says its army will have a four-month extendable period to implement phase two of the military’s plan to disarm Hezbollah in south Lebanon.

Lebanon’s government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, which was badly weakened in a recent war with Israel, and the military said last month that it had completed the first phase of its plan, covering the area between the Litani River and the Israeli border, about 30 kilometers (20 miles) further south.

Phase two covers an area north of the river.

Information Minister Paul Morcos tells a press conference after a cabinet session that the government “took note of the army leadership’s presentation” on the second stage of the plan and that “there is a timeframe of four months, extendable depending on available capabilities, Israeli attacks, and hindrances on the ground.”

Israel has cast doubts on Lebanon’s claim that it has fully disarmed Hezbollah south of the Litani, and has continued to carry out strikes on Hezbollah operatives and infrastructure in the area.

FIFA president celebrates receiving his Lebanese passport in Beirut

FIFA President Gianni Infantino speaks as he attends the 2025 Atlantic Council Global Citizen Awards on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York City on September 24, 2025. (Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

FIFA President Gianni Infantino receives his Lebanese passport at the Interior Ministry in Beirut, months after he was granted citizenship by the country’s president.

Infantino, who is married to Lebanese citizen Lina al-Ashkar, thanked Joseph Aoun, when he received him today, for granting him and his family Lebanese citizenship.

The meeting with Aoun took place after Infantino visited the Interior Ministry where he performed the official process of filing documents, being photographed, and having his fingerprints taken before he was handed a copy of his new blue Lebanese passport.

Infantino also has Italian and Swiss citizenship.

“I’m very proud and very happy to be here in Beirut at the Ministry of Interior to finally get my Lebanese passport,” Infantino says in a video carried by local TV stations. “I love Lebanon.”

Smotrich says he would tell his daughter not to enlist in the IDF

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich speaks ahead of a Religious Zionist party meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, February 16, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, the head of the Religious Zionism party, says he would tell his daughter not to serve in the IDF.

“If my daughter asked me, I would try to educate her not to go” serve in the military, Smotrich says, in response to a question from a reporter at his party’s faction meeting in the Knesset.

“The Chief Rabbinate is against this. This is the position of my rabbis,” says Smotrich. “I hope that you, these big progressives, can also respect the values of several thousand years…. And I of course respect those who think differently than I do.”

The issue of religious women serving in the IDF is a divisive one in the national religious community, where many instead undertake national service instead of enlisting, although it is also common for female graduates of religious high schools to enlist. Many major religious Zionist rabbis have spoken out against women serving in the IDF, arguing that it is not modest or appropriate.

Smotrich himself served a shortened IDF service after enlisting at age 28. He has in the past spoken out against mixed-gender combat units in the military.

18-year-old Palestinian said shot dead by Israeli forces in West Bank; no comment from IDF

An 18-year-old Palestinian was killed this evening by Israeli forces at the northern entrance to the West Bank city of Qalqilya, according to Palestinian media outlets.

He is identified as Muhammad Shreim.

The IDF does not immediately comment on the reports.

الشهيد الفتى "محمد كمال شريم" الذي ارتقى برصاص الاحتلال في محيط الحاجز الشمالي لمدينة قلقيلية. pic.twitter.com/6dEpRrdagX

— القسطل الإخباري (@AlQastalps) February 16, 2026

Shreim was reportedly shot and wounded near the security barrier separating Israel from the West Bank.

He was transferred in a Red Crescent ambulance to Qalqilya’s Darwish Nazzal governmental hospital, where he was declared dead, according to WAFA, the Palestinian Authority’s official news agency.

IDF: Hezbollah operative killed in Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon

A Hezbollah operative involved in restoring the terror group’s infrastructure was killed in an Israeli drone strike in the southern Lebanon town of Tallouseh this evening, the military says.

The IDF says the operative served “as a local representative of the Hezbollah terror organization in the village,” and was actively “engaged in attempts to restore military infrastructure.”

As part of his role, he was responsible for liaising between the terror group and the residents of Tallouseh “on economic and military matters,” according to the military.

The IDF says the operative also “acted to seize private property for terror purposes.”

His actions were a violation of the November 2024 ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon, the military adds.

חיסול נוסף ב-12 שעות: צה"ל חיסל מחבל מארגון הטרור חיזבאללה שפעל לשיקום תשתיות בדרום לבנון

צה"ל תקף מוקדם יותר היום וחיסל מחבל שעסק בניסיון שיקום תשתיות צבאיות של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב טלוסה שבדרום לבנון.

המחבל פעל כנציג מקומי של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב כפר טלוסה שבדרום… pic.twitter.com/trwZmOSXya

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) February 16, 2026

Graham to ToI: US must back up promises to Iran protesters; ISF can’t disarm Hamas

Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina speaks to the media in Tel Aviv, December 21, 2025. (AP/ Maya Levin)

The US must “deliver” on its pledges to aid Iranian protesters, US Senator Lindsey Graham tells The Times of Israel.

“We promised that help would be on the way to the protesters,” he says after meeting with top Israeli officials in Jerusalem, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “We have to deliver on that promise.”

“If having said all the things we’ve said and done all the things we’ve done,” he continues, “if the ayatollah is still standing after all this bluster, then it would be a strategic victory for Iran and the force of radical Islam.”

There is “no daylight” between US President Donald Trump and Netanyahu on Iran, he says.

Graham says he will continue from Israel to the UAE and then to Saudi Arabia.

He heaps praise on the UAE and its leader, Mohammed Bin Zayed: “They have taken the risk in the name of living toward the light. They have a very capable military. They’ve been an incredibly reliable partner on intelligence. I want to go and let the people of the United Arab Emirates, MBZ, know we appreciate the partnership. Israel very much appreciates it.”

“Bibi was just over the top in his phrase of MBZ,” says Graham of his meeting earlier today with Netanyahu.

The South Carolina Republican says he would “like to get them more capable weapons from the United States, upgrade their weapons package.”

While arguing that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman wants peace and prosperity for the region, he is critical of recent Saudi statements and moves against the UAE and Israel, saying, “There’s no issue that would justify some of the things being said.”

“Discord between allies only emboldens the enemy, and now is the time to have our differences, but do it in a fashion that doesn’t advance the cause of the bad guys,” he tells The Times of Israel.

Turning to Gaza, Graham says, “I don’t believe Hamas will ever disarm until made to do so.”

“If you don’t put them on a clock, this thing goes forever,” he says, calling for a deadline to be issued by the White House.

Contradicting Trump’s statements about the effectiveness of the nascent International Stabilization Force in Gaza, Graham says that “it’s not going to be the force that leads to the demise of Hamas.”

“This force may emerge afterwards, but I don’t see anybody in the region willing to go in on the ground and take the weapons away from Hamas other than Israel,” Graham says.

Israel foils attempt to smuggle hundreds of kilograms of tobacco into Gaza Strip

Tobacco hidden inside a can of vine leaves that was caught during a smuggling attempt at the Kerem Shalom Crossing with the Gaza Strip, February 16, 2026. (COGAT)

The Defense Ministry says it foiled an “unusual” attempt to smuggle hundreds of kilograms of tobacco into the Gaza Strip earlier today.

The tobacco was hidden inside cans of vine leaves that were being imported into Gaza via the Kerem Shalom border crossing, the ministry says.

Members of the ministry’s Crossing Points Authority and the Coordination and Liaison Administration for Gaza located the contraband during a routine inspection of the goods at the crossing.

According to the ministry, the truck was carrying a shipment of food purchased by an Israeli company that had been approved under a mechanism for the entry of aid by the private sector.

Tobacco hidden inside a can of vine leaves that was caught during a smuggling attempt at the Kerem Shalom Crossing with the Gaza Strip, February 16, 2026. (COGAT)

“Following the smuggling attempt, the truck and all of its contents were confiscated and transferred for further handling by customs and other authorities,” the ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories says.

COGAT chief Maj. Gen. Yoram Halevy also ordered “the immediate suspension of the company’s approval to bring aid into the Gaza Strip until further notice.”

“The decision was made in light of the severity of the case and in order to preserve the integrity of the aid entry mechanism, while preventing its exploitation for prohibited purposes,” COGAT adds.

Israel has banned the entry of cigarettes and other tobacco products into Gaza during the war, with officials saying that such products, when smuggled illegally, are sold for high prices on the black market and heavily taxed by Hamas.

Huckabee: At some point, US must tell Iran that ‘enough is enough’

US Ambassador Mike Huckabee addresses the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations' Leadership Mission in Jerusalem, February 16, 2026. (Courtesy)

US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee says he hopes a diplomatic accord with Iran can be reached, but he is skeptical that military action can ultimately be avoided, as indirect nuclear talks between the US and Iran resume tomorrow in Geneva.

“Will there be anything that can come from that that will bring peace?” he asks, while speaking to Jewish leaders at a gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem. “I honestly don’t know. I know there’s a lot of significant and legitimate doubt that the Iranians will ever agree to something that would cause them to lay down any ambitions of nuclear weaponry.”

“At some point, the United States needs to say: enough is enough, we’re not going to continue to believe that they’re ever going to be different than they are. And it’s time for them to either make a radical change of their point of view and their direction, or for them to experience what we call in the south, the ‘second kick of a mule,'” the ambassador says.

Huckabee says US President Donald Trump has made it clear that military action against Iran is “not his first choice,” but that it would be “his absolute desire to make sure that they do not continue to wreak havoc in the world.”

He reiterates that Israel and the United States are “absolutely aligned in our understanding that Iran has to be dealt with and it cannot continue as it is.”

“They cannot remain a nuclear threat. They cannot continue to build extraordinary surpluses of ballistic missiles and aim them, not just at Israel, but also at the rest of the world,” he continues.

While Huckabee says he would be “delighted” if an accord could be reached — adding that the consequences of failing to do so for Iran will be “harsh and much worse” than Israel’s 12-day conflict with Iran last year — he expresses skepticism that Iran would be “serious” about making or keeping such a commitment.

Huckabee says he told Trump last week at the White House that it would be “miraculous if some deal could be reached that would thwart the need, the necessity, the absolute certainty of some military action,” but also that he is “willing to do whatever must be done to stop this threat that I’ve had to listen to for 47 years since 1979.”

Greece says it will try to obtain Nazi firing squad photos being sold on eBay

People walk past a vandalized memorial plaque at the Kaisariani Shooting Range in the Kaisariani suburb of Athens, Greece, on February 16, 2026. (AP/ Petros Giannakouris)

Greece says it will try to obtain photos that appear to show the final moments of 200 Greeks who were executed by a Nazi firing squad in Athens during World War II, after the previously unknown pictures appeared on an online sale site.

The images that appeared on eBay over the weekend allegedly show the men being led to their deaths on May 1, 1944, at a shooting range in the Kaisariani suburb of the Greek capital. Although the executions were well known, there were no known photos or film documentation of the event.

Greece’s Culture Ministry says that “it is very possible that these are authentic photographs,” adding that it will seek to obtain them as historical archives after they were put up for sale on Saturday by a collector in Belgium of German military memorabilia.

The series of pictures show men being led through a gateway and down a path. They stand straight as they are lined up in front of a wall.

The Kaisariani executions of 200 communist political prisoners were one of the worst atrocities during the Third Reich’s occupation of Greece and remain a seminal moment for the country.

Shortly after the photos were posted for sale, a memorial at the site to those killed was vandalized, with plaques listing their names smashed.

UN chief urges Israel to reverse West Bank land registration measure

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres calls on Israel to reverse its new policy allowing registration of West Bank land as state property.

Guterres believes this new measure is “destabilizing” and “unlawful,” his spokesman Stephane Dujarric says in a statement.

IDF launches West Bank operation ahead of Ramadan to ‘ensure security and stability’

Israeli security forces stand guard near the Awarta checkpoint, south of Nablus in the West Bank, February 16, 2026. (Nasser Ishtayeh/Flash90)

Ahead of the holy Muslim month of Ramadan, the Israeli military says it has begun an operation across the West Bank aimed at arresting Palestinians “advancing incitement and terror on social media.”

“In preparation for the blessed month of Ramadan, and as a step to ensure security and stability and combat terrorism, IDF troops have in recent days begun an operation across Judea and Samaria against elements advancing incitement and terror on social media networks,” says Lt. Col. Ella Waweya, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokeswoman, in a statement.

She says the operation is expected to continue throughout Ramadan, which begins tomorrow night and ends in late March.

“The message is clear: Ramadan is a month of family, community and unity. Do not allow terror organizations to ruin it for you, and do not be drawn after incitement on social media networks,” Waweya says.

As was the case last Ramadan, Israel will grant permits to 10,000 West Bank Palestinians — only males aged 55 and older, women at least 50 years old, and children aged 12 and below — to enter Jerusalem for Friday prayers on the Temple Mount during Ramadan.

Lapid tells Herzog to only weigh Netanyahu pardon if it includes admission of guilt

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid says he spoke to President Isaac Herzog about a possible pardon for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in his corruption trials, urging him to demand a new request that includes an admission of guilt.

“I told the president that if Netanyahu wants his pardon request to be seriously considered, he needs to submit a request according to the law, with an admission of guilt, with an expression of remorse, recognition that there will be” a conviction of moral turpitude, Lapid says in a video filmed outside the president’s residence.

“Only then can it be considered,” Lapid adds.

Netanyahu submitted an official pardon request — that did not contain any admission of guilt — to Herzog’s office in November, and since then, the president has said it is being considered through the proper legal channels.

Meanwhile US President Trump has been heavily pressuring Herzog to grant the pardon, including in sharp comments last week saying he should be “ashamed of himself” if he does not do so.

Defense Ministry says no decision made on wording of headstones for fallen soldiers on and since Oct. 7

Gal Moreno, wife of late IDF soldier Master sergeant (res.) Itai Moreno, visits his grave on his 25th birthday, at Mount Herzl Military Cemetery in Jerusalem on September 15, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/ Flash90)

The Defense Ministry says that, contrary to recent media reports, there have been no changes regarding the inscriptions on the gravestones of soldiers who were killed during the two-year war against Hamas in Gaza and on other fronts.

Currently, the gravestones read that the soldiers “fell in battle,” without using any name for the war.

Last year, the government voted to rename the conflict, “The War of Revival,” a controversial proposal by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that is viewed by critics as an attempt to evade responsibility for failing to prevent the October 7, 2023, massacre that sparked the war.

Despite the formal name — and the IDF previously calling it “Swords of Iron” — many in Israel refer to the conflict as the “October 7 war.” Some bereaved families reacted angrily to the idea of engraving the new name on their loved ones’ headstones.

The Defense Ministry says that “no change has been made and no new decision has been adopted regarding the wording on the headstones of fallen war soldiers.”

“In the government decision dated October 19, 2025, which determined the name of the war, it was stated that any change to the wording on the fallen soldiers’ headstones would be made in full coordination with the bereaved families,” the ministry says.

The ministry says that it “will not make any change to the wording on fallen soldiers’ headstones without coordination with the families and at their request, as has been the practice until now.”

It adds that the manner of implementing the government decision will be brought before the ministry’s Public Council for the Commemoration of the Soldier, “which is composed of representatives of the bereaved families and the representative organizations.”

Visiting Israel, senator says US decision on Iran is ‘weeks, not months’ away

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu hosts visiting US Senator Lindsey Graham in Jerusalem, February 16, 2026. (Maayan Toaf/GPO)

Visiting Israel, US Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham suggests that an American decision on action against Iran is “weeks, not months” away.

The veteran American lawmaker, considered an ally of US President Donald Trump, says in a press briefing in Tel Aviv that he is visiting the country “to reassure the Israeli people there is no light” between the US and Israel on Iran.

“There are two lines in the water right now,” says Graham. “One’s a diplomatic line, trying to find a way to end this regime diplomatically that will advance our national security interest. The other line is the military option.”

Graham, who later meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, says that he believes Trump “is looking for which line can catch the biggest fish. Bottom line is we’re in the weeks, not months, in terms of decision-making.”

The US senator avers that “the Iranian ayatollah and his murderous regime are at their weakest point since 1979. Their economy is in shambles. Their military has been degraded. There are people in the streets.”

Graham says that he believes “the risk of regime change is real. There are unknowns. But let me just say this, I’m willing to take that risk. I think the Iranian people have the potential to be a great ally of the United States, Israel, and the region.”

The US and Iran took part in diplomatic talks hosted by Oman earlier this month, and are slated to meet again there next week.

Man shot dead in Tamra was victim of revenge attack, says city resident

Jamil Mahmoud Diab, who was killed in a shooting in the northern Arab city of Tamra on February 16, 2026. (Facebook)

A man shot dead today in Tamra was killed in an act of revenge, a city resident tells The Times of Israel, after the victim’s two sons were implicated in last week’s lethal shooting of a 55-year-old woman.

Jamil Mahmoud Diab, a 60-year-old electrician, was found dead this afternoon after being shot in the head by unknown assailants. Police opened an investigation, but have not yet arrested any suspects.

A resident who knew the slain man says that his two sons were arrested in connection to a lethal shooting Thursday night, which left 55-year-old Wafaa Awad, a mother to six and grandmother to 18, dead in her home.

Awad had been hanging laundry on the balcony of her home when gunmen shot at the family’s car, then towards the house. A bullet struck her upper body, killing her.

The slain woman was killed in a shooting linked to organized crime, not a blood feud between the Awad and Diab families, but tensions are now running high between the two families in the wake of the bloodshed.

Arab society witnessed three homicide deaths today, after a father and son were killed on the outskirts of Umm al-Fahm this morning. Diab was shot dead hours later, making him the 51st person killed since the start of 2026, as a wave of violent crime continues to plague Israel’s Arab minority.

IDF says it struck Hezbollah operative in southern Lebanon

The IDF says it struck a Hezbollah operative in the southern Lebanon town of Tallouseh a short while ago.

No further details are immediately given by the military.

3 said sentenced to death in India for rape last year of Israeli woman, killing of Indian man

Three people have been sentenced to death in India for the gang rape of an Israeli woman and an Indian woman and the killing of an Indian man, according to Indian news outlets.

In the March 2025 incident, a group of three men allegedly attacked a group of five people that included an Israeli woman and an American man who were on a stargazing trip.

According to the NDTV Indian news outlet, the three assailants have been sentenced to death after being found guilty last year of rape and murder.

Ahead of Ramadan, police shut East Jerusalem road near security barrier amid infiltration fears

Border Police place concrete barriers to block a road near the security barrier in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Beit Hanina, as part of an operation to prevent Palestinian workers from entering Israel illegally, February 10, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Border Police forces have closed off a road next to the West Bank security barrier in a Palestinian neighborhood of East Jerusalem and seized security cameras from residents, in an effort to clamp down on the unlawful entry of Palestinian workers, a spokesman says.

Law enforcement came last week with a truck carrying large concrete blocks, placing them along a road directly adjacent to the Israeli side of the barrier, creating a buffer zone where only security forces are permitted to operate. As part of the same operation, Border Police began collecting security cameras in the area.

“The forces identified that there were a lot of cameras on poles pointed towards the direction of the barrier, that is to say, observing [the border],” a Border Police spokesman tells The Times of Israel.

According to the spokesman, the cameras were used to track the location of security forces, signaling whether the coast is clear for West Bank Palestinians to cross into Jerusalem.

The raid last week was launched as part of a larger operation to combat “infiltration, strengthen the barrier and change the security reality in the area,” police say in a statement.

יממה לאחר חסימת הצירים בבטונדות, המשטרה הסירה היום מאות מצלמות אבטחה של תושבי שכונת דאחיית אל בריד בירושלים. חלק מהמצלמות, כך על פי המשטרה, נועדו לעקוב אחר תנועת כוחות המשטרה באזור, ובמשטרה מעריכים כי הן שימשו ללימוד דפוסי הפעילות של הכוחות במטרה לסייע בהברחת שוהים בלתי חוקיים pic.twitter.com/5lsxYmeekM

— לירן תמרי | Liran Tamari (@liran__tamari) February 11, 2026

“We’re creating another layer of protection in order to reinforce Israeli citizens’ security and allow us to operate with more freedom,” Ch. Supt. Eli Tubul, a Border Police officer involved in the operation, tells the Ynet news site. He says police are shifting gears from a “defensive” mode to an “offensive” one.

The Jerusalem District’s recently appointed commander, Deputy Commissioner Avshalom Peled, accompanied forces during the initial raid last week. Officers mapped the area and towed vehicles within the newly formed buffer zone.

In addition, Border Police and IDF soldiers seized weapons and arrested a suspect during a nighttime raid in Kafr Aqab, police announce today. Although it is a part of the Jerusalem municipality, the Palestinian neighborhood lies beyond the West Bank security barrier.

The operations come in the leadup to the month-long Muslim holiday of Ramadan, which has in the past seen escalations in the existing tensions between Israelis and Palestinians as Muslims from across Israel and the West Bank travel to Jerusalem to pray at Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Hapag-Lloyd, FIMI Funds ink $4.2 billion deal to buy Israel’s Zim

Illustrative: A ZIM container ship at the Haifa port, November 14, 2011. (Yaakov Naumi/Flash90)

German shipping giant Hapag-Lloyd and Israeli private equity fund FIMI Opportunity Funds sign an agreement to acquire the Haifa-based shipping giant Zim Integrated Shipping Services in a deal worth $4.2 billion.

Hapag-Lloyd will buy 100% of Zim’s shares for a consideration of $35 per share in cash. The acquisition will secure Hapag-Lloyd’s market position as the fifth-largest container shipping company worldwide with a fleet of more than 400 vessels. As part of the deal, FIMI will control Zim’s Israel operations.

“Zim is an excellent partner for Hapag-Lloyd,” says Hapag-Lloyd CEO Rolf Habben Jansen. “We will use this opportunity to create the best team from the exceptional talent in ZIM and Hapag-Lloyd – in Israel and around the globe – and we commit ourselves to build a very substantial and long-term presence in Israel.”

Under the terms of the agreement, Israel’s FIMI Opportunity Funds will take ownership of a “carved-out container liner business that will serve some of the most important strategic trade-lanes, seamlessly connect to the global network of Hapag-Lloyd and in combination enhance and secure the global maritime connectivity for the State of Israel.”

“FIMI recognizes and believes in the strategic importance for the State of Israel of a strong independent Israeli shipping company,” says FIMI Funds founder and CEO Ishay Davidi. “We will create a stable Israeli company, the new Zim, and view Hapag-Lloyd as a significant strategic partner for its ongoing operations.”

The Israeli government holds a so-called “golden share” in Zim, giving it special rights to require Zim to maintain a presence in Israel, including a certain number of vessels that must remain Israeli-owned to ensure maritime traffic continues even in times of war.

The completion of the transaction is subject to approval by Zim’s shareholders and the relevant regulatory authorities, among other conditions.

Off-duty police officer stabs his daughter’s ex-boyfriend in Netanya brawl

An off-duty police officer stabbed and seriously injured his daughter’s ex-boyfriend after a brawl erupted between the two in Netanya, Hebrew media outlets report.

Police say that the fight broke out due to an “ongoing family dispute.” They add that both the cop and ex-boyfriend were taken to the hospital after sustaining injuries in the brawl, which occurred in the officer’s home.

The officer was injured lightly after he cut himself with the knife he was using, according to Ynet.

The Department for Internal Police Investigations, which probes officers suspected of criminal offenses, is investigating the policeman’s involvement in the incident.

Haredi spiritual leader denies encouraging anti-IDF violence

Rabbi Dov Lando in Bnei Brak, August 21, 2025. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)

A spokesman for Rabbi Dov Lando, the spiritual leader of the Degel HaTorah party, denies that his rhetoric is in any way responsible for inciting violence in the wake of yesterday’s mob attack on two IDF servicewoman in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak.

“What is this nonsense? Where did he use rhetoric that even hinted that one should go to demonstrations or use force or do something similar to that,” the spokesman asks. “He said a thousand times at every opportunity that a yeshiva student is not allowed to leave the yeshiva” or go to demonstrations. “What else do they expect? That he activate a private police force?”

Following yesterday’s violence, Lando released a letter reiterating his previous call for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students to refrain from attending demonstrations.

Lando, one of the most prominent rabbinic leaders of the so-called “Lithuanian” stream of ultra-Orthodoxy, has publicly instructed yeshiva students to ignore IDF conscription orders. Under Israeli law, someone inciting others to evade service during wartime is liable to a prison term of 15 years.

He has also stated that those enforcing conscription are fighting against God, and used his party’s mouthpiece, Yated Neeman, to accuse the government of declaring “war” against the Haredi community by trying to recruit yeshiva students. He has also indicated that those who arrest evaders are subject to divine retribution, has vowed that not one yeshiva student would be drafted into the military, and has feted evaders after their release from military prison.

Students in Bedouin village have school day cut short after police fire tear gas nearby

Elementary school students in the southern Bedouin village of Tarabin al-Sana were forced to go home early today after police used tear gas near the building, one of the residents tells The Times of Israel.

In footage from the town, around a dozen police officers are seen shooting what appear to be tear gas canisters near a fenced-in basketball court.

Police still operate regularly in Tarabin al-Sana after the raid two months ago

Residents say officers launched tear gas near an elementary school, hurting students and forcing them to go home early. Police say they were responding to stone-throwing

Footage from today: pic.twitter.com/96FPv71Ztr

— charlie summers (@cbsu03) February 16, 2026

According to resident Munder Tarabin, the students, some of them as young as five years old, were hurt by the substance, which spread throughout the school grounds after police used it at around 1:30 p.m. “Police shouldn’t be behaving this way towards children,” he says.

A Southern District police spokesman tells The Times of Israel that police were forced to use riot control weapons in response to stone-throwing by residents during an operation in the village. The goals of the operation were not immediately clear.

Tarabin al-Sana was subject to a massive police raid, which began in December and lasted into January this year, after several residents of the town allegedly set fire to cars in nearby Jewish towns.

During the police raid, a man was killed on his doorstep by an officer. Police claim the man posed a threat to forces, but the slain man’s son said at the time that he was shot without provocation, and that police tampered with evidence after the fact.

Investigators in the State Attorney’s Office are currently probing the officer, alongside several other suspects, in connection with the incident.

Lapid says Bnei Brak violence is ‘not an isolated phenomenon’

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid speaks at a faction meeting of his Yesh Atid party at the Knesset in Jerusalem on February 16, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Addressing the Knesset ahead of a no-confidence vote in the government, Opposition Leader Yair Lapid asserts that yesterday’s mob attack on two IDF servicewomen in Bnei Brak was “not an isolated phenomenon.”

“What we saw yesterday in Bnei Brak is not an isolated phenomenon. It happens time and time again under this government. You are permitting [the shedding of] the blood of the IDF. You are against the IDF. This isn’t just happening in Bnei Brak,” he says, referencing settler attacks on the IDF in the West Bank.

“This government keeps saying that it’s completely right-wing. You’re not completely right-wing, you’re not right-wing at all. You’re a government that exists thanks to anti-Zionist parties, who are against conscription into the IDF, whose public is trying to lynch female soldiers and flips over police cars,” Lapid says.

Responding to the opposition’s no-confidence motions, Deputy Minister Yisrael Eichler (United Torah Judaism) slams “incitement” against his community, calling it “dangerous” and insisting that it “is intended to legitimize government violence.”

“The incitement during no-confidence motions on the Knesset stage regarding ‘Haredi draft evasion’ is dangerous and intended to legitimize state violence,” he says.

Eichler says opposition figures who call to “fight the Haredim just as we fight terrorists” are issuing a “license for bloodshed. Recently, two Haredi youths have already been killed by bus strikes during demonstrations.”

“If we do not fight against this incitement, it will continue to get worse, heaven forbid. This is how civil wars begin, and one can never know when or how they will end,” Eichler says.

Attacker gets 15 years in prison for deadly 2023 shooting at Tunisian synagogue

In this picture taken on May 9, 2023, police secure an area near the Ghriba synagogue following a shooting attack on the resort island of Djerba. (YASSINE MAHJOUB / AFP)

Tunisian courts hand down prison sentences of up to 15 years to five defendants tied to a deadly May 2023 attack on a synagogue on the island of Djerba, one of their lawyers tells AFP.

The attack on the Ghriba synagogue left five people dead, not including the assailant, a National Guard officer, who was killed during the attack.

A student and the attacker’s fiancee, who were prosecuted for “complicity in homicide” and “membership in a terrorist group,” were sentenced to three and eight years in prison respectively, says Nizar Ayed, lawyer for several victims of the attack.

According to Ayed, the assailant acted “as a lone wolf.”

Two other defendants, whose exact roles were not disclosed, were sentenced to seven and 15 years’ imprisonment, with the heavier penalty given out because the defendant had fled justice, according to the lawyer. The assailant’s sister, currently out on bail, was sentenced to one year in prison.

The defense for the accused will appeal, says Mustapha Mlaouah, the fiancée’s lawyer.

On May 9, 2023, the attacker killed three of his colleagues as well as two Jewish worshippers, Aviel Haddad, a 30-year-old Tunisian, and his cousin Benjamin, a 42-year-old French national.

He shot dead one colleague while working at the island’s port and then drove to the synagogue, about 20 kilometers away, where hundreds of people were taking part in the third day of an annual Jewish pilgrimage. There, he killed the two Jewish men and wounded several officers providing security, two of whom died later from their wounds.

Visiting Beirut, German president urges Lebanon to keep up disarmament of Hezbollah

Lebanon's Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (right) receives Germany's President Frank-Walter Steinmeier at his headquarters in Beirut on February 16, 2026. (IBRAHIM AMRO / AFP)

Visiting German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier urges Beirut to keep disarming terror group Hezbollah, saying it will help ensure the withdrawal of the IDF from Lebanese territory.

Lebanon’s government has committed to disarming Hezbollah, and the army last month said it had completed the first phase of the plan, covering the area between the Litani River and the Israeli border.

Steinmeier says his visit is about “the demand that both sides fulfill their obligations under the November 2024 ceasefire agreement and that the disarmament of Hezbollah here in Lebanon continues, thereby creating the conditions for the Israeli army to withdraw from southern Lebanon.”

“Both sides are obliged to fulfill the ceasefire agreement — I say this in Israel as well as in Lebanon,” he tells a press conference with his Lebanese counterpart Joseph Aoun, calling the deal “an opportunity.”

Aoun says Lebanon has asked Germany to “demand the Israeli side implement the ceasefire agreement and withdraw from the territories it occupies.”

He also asked Germany to assist the Lebanese army and to play a “key role” after the departure of United Nations peacekeepers, whose mandate expires this year.

Reservist and anti-government activist Omri Ronen joins Golan’s The Democrats

The Democrats party leader Yair Golan (left) shakes hands with new member Omri Ronen at a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, February 16, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Democrats leader Yair Golan announces that anti-government activist, reservist and bereaved family member Omri Ronen is joining the left-wing party.

“I look at you, Omri, and I see the entire Israeli story, with all its beauty and all its unimaginable pain,” says Golan, speaking to reporters ahead of the party’s faction meeting at the Knesset, alongside Ronen.

Ronen was born in Kibbutz Kfar Aza and is the grandson of Nira Ronen, who was murdered by Hamas terrorists in her home in Kfar Aza on October 7 alongside her Filipina caregiver, Angelyn Aguirre, who refused to leave her patient’s side.

An officer in the elite Maglan unit, Ronen was called up as a reservist following the attacks, serving more than 350 days of reserve duty. He is also a prominent activist and member of the Brothers in Arms movement, which opposed the government’s judicial overhaul in 2023.

“Omri, I know that someone who stood against terrorists and someone who faced a national crisis will also know how to fight in the Knesset,” Golan continues.

Ronen says that after “three years of fighting for the State of Israel” on the battlefield, in the streets, and in the rehabilitation of the Western Negev, “the next great and important battle is in building public leadership that will be good for Israel. I am excited to stand here today and announce that I am joining The Democrats.”

Justice minister refuses to say if he will obey court order to convene Judicial Selection Committee

Justice Minister Yariv Levin at the annual Jerusalem Conference of the 'Besheva' group in Jerusalem, February 16, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Justice Minister Yariv Levin refuses to say whether he will obey an order by the High Court of Justice to convene the Judicial Selection Committee and make new judicial appointments.

Speaking at the Jerusalem Conference of the Besheva media group, Levin complains that the composition of the Judicial Selection Committee disadvantages the government, and says he will not allow “decisions to be forced upon us” in reference to judicial appointments.

Levin has refused to convene the committee for over a year on the grounds that “broad consensus” cannot be reached over judicial candidates, even though the law as it currently stands requires the support of only five out of nine members for a lower court appointment and seven out of nine members for a Supreme Court appointment.

Petitioners and the attorney general have accused Levin of thereby unlawfully granting himself a veto over all judicial appointments by refusing to convene the committee, which he chairs.

The Supreme Court, sitting in its capacity as the High Court of Justice, issued a conditional order against Levin yesterday ordering him to justify his position in court.

Asked at the conference if he would obey a final ruling ordering him to convene the committee, Levin says: “We will wait and see. I don’t want to declare ahead of time on every action I intend to take. Whoever thinks that force will work is making a mistake. We will not give in. We will continue to act to restore democracy and equality.”

The justice minister adds that if the current coalition wins the coming national election, it would “enable us to change the Supreme Court from its foundations,” adding, “I will not enable and will not agree to a situation in which they force appointments on us that do not reflect the public.”

Jordan’s king says Israeli moves in West Bank ‘threaten to exacerbate conflict’

Jordan's King Abdullah II looks on during a reception by the deputy speaker of the Hungarian Parliament at the Hungarian Parliament building in Budapest on October 16, 2025. (Attila KISBENEDEK / AFP)

Jordan’s King Abdullah II criticizes Israel’s approval of measures allowing for the registration of land in the West Bank as “state property.”

“Israel’s illegal actions aiming to consolidate settlements and impose sovereignty over Palestinian land undermine efforts to restore calm and threaten to exacerbate the conflict,” he says during a meeting with British officials in London, according to a statement released by the royal court.

Agriculture Ministry slams Smotrich’s planned dairy reform

Workers milk cows at Kibbutz Ginosar, northern Israel, February 3, 2026. (Michael Giladi/Flash90)

The Agriculture Ministry slams Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s proposed dairy reform during a debate in the Knesset Committee for Public Projects, stating that the initiative undermines its own proposed national plan for food security, which aims to boost domestic production.

“The dairy reform harms our plan and cannot meet the goals it set for itself. When people talk about lowering the cost of living, they talk about total daily costs; an Israeli household spends only 1.6 percent on milk,” declares Yuval Lipkin, the head of the ministry’s Food Security Directorate.

Lipkin’s objections are echoed by farmers and opposition lawmakers, who argue that high dairy costs are driven in part by the requirements of kosher production.

In response, Finance Ministry representative Asael Tzur notes that the reform has already passed its first reading in the Knesset while the Agriculture Ministry’s plan has yet to receive government backing and argues that the dairy sector is operating as a “cartel.”

“The main part of our plan concerns the dairy sector by opening the industry to imports. We understand that this is not enough” and that the “local market also needs to be streamlined, so that dairy farmers can cope with the new rules of the game,” he says, adding that “we are doing this by lowering the target price,” the government-set rate paid to milk producers by the big dairy companies.

IDF chief says military will continue its ‘high operational tempo’ in 2026

IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir speaks to reservist officers, February 15, 2026. (Israel Defense Forces)

Speaking to reserve brigade commanders yesterday, IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir said Israel is still in a “multi-front campaign, and 2026 will continue to be a year in which we operate at a high operational-offensive tempo, to further weaken the threats and defeat our enemies along the lines of contact.”

“I know how much responsibility rests on your shoulders. The war showed all of us just how much the reserve brigades, and within them the reserve battalion and brigade commanders, are a significant part of the operational core of the IDF. It is our responsibility to take care of the servicemembers, address burnout, strengthen the professional foundations, and return to training alongside the continued intensified operational activity,” Zamir said, according to remarks provided by the military.

“We are attentive to your needs and to the voices coming from the field, and are working to provide you with the flexibility required for this,” he continues.

Zamir also told the officers that he “instructed the closure of all ad hoc forces that were established during the war.”

“I salute and appreciate everyone who stepped up and assisted at its outset and throughout, but we must operate in a systematic and professional manner. Units and forces for which there is an operational need will be formally regulated and properly integrated,” he added.

Israel’s Szollos finishes 26th in slalom, wrapping up his Olympic run

Israel's Barnabas Szollos completes the second run of the men's slalom alpine skiing event during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games on February 16, 2026. (Fabrice COFFRINI / AFP)

Israeli alpine skier Barnabas Szollos finishes the challenging slalom course in 26th place at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milano Cortina, wrapping up his appearance at the Games.

Szollos finished 26th in the first run earlier this morning and 27th in the second run.

“I made it, another top 30. That was the goal,” says Szollos in a video message after the race. “I had a few very difficult days the last few days with an injury, but I never gave up – for you. Thanks for the support and the cheering.”

A whopping 51 skiers, more than half of the field, were knocked out in the first run of the slalom – including Brazil’s Lucas Pinheiro Braathen, who won gold in the giant slalom on Saturday – amid low visibility and treacherous weather conditions. Five more skiers were knocked out in the second run, including Norwegian Atle McGrath, who was in lead position following the first run.

In total, only 39 of the 96 athletes who qualified for the race managed to make it down the mountain in both runs.

Gold medal in the event goes to Switzerland’s Loic Meillard, as Austrian Fabio Gstrein takes silver and Norway’s Henrik Kristoffersen clinches bronze.

This is the fourth and last race for Szollos at this year’s Games. He finished 41st in the giant slalom on Saturday, 33rd in the super-G on Wednesday and 30th in the downhill last Saturday, making this his best 2026 Olympic event.

Israeli envoy to US claims Israel’s F35I jets now have range-extending fuel tanks

An IAF Boeing 707 refueling plane flies alongside F-35 fighter jets over the Middle East, in a handout photo issued on June 18, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

Israel has modified its F-35I fighter jets to have extended range capabilities through additional fuel tanks, “without compromising stealth,” Yechiel Leiter, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, claims in an interview with the Israel Hayom daily.

“We developed fuel tanks that extend the aircraft’s range without compromising stealth, and we added four missiles on the wings,” Leiter says.

It has been reported for several years that the Israeli Air Force has been developing range-extending fuel tanks for the F-35s, enabling strikes in distant locations such as Iran without the need for aerial refueling.

While extra fuel tanks can increase the range of the aircraft, they would likely negate its stealth qualities as they would significantly increase the jet’s radar signature, unless jettisoned before approaching enemy airspace.

Leiter’s mention of placing missiles on the wings of the F-35 is also not a new development, but rather known as “beast mode” configuration, whereby the stealth qualities of the fighter jet are forgone for extra firepower.

A year ago, the Israeli Air Force said that it had developed — alongside the F-35 manufacturer Lockheed Martin and the Pentagon’s F-35 program — a capability to carry missiles on the fighter jets’ wings, saying that its aircraft are the “only F-35 to conduct strikes with this design.” Images published by the IAF during the June 2025 war with Iran showed missiles attached to the wings of Israeli F-35I jets.

The “Adir” was originally designed to carry munitions internally. Flight Test Center, in collaboration with @LockheedMartin and the Pentagon’s F-35 program, developed a capability for external JDAM carriage. Israel’s “Adir” is the only F-35 to conduct strikes with this design. pic.twitter.com/l3RyFhGXnX

— Israeli Air Force (@IAFsite) March 16, 2025

“The number of flight hours our pilots have on the F-35 is greater than that of all the pilots of the other foreign countries that were partners in developing the aircraft,” Leiter says in the interview. “The feedback from our pilots reaches Lockheed Martin. When I visited there a few weeks ago, their CEO told me that Israel’s information and developments ‘are worth many billions to my company.'”

Man shot and killed in Tamra in 3rd homicide in the past day

A man has been shot and killed in the northern city of Tamra, police say, marking the third homicide death to rock Arab society within a single day.

Police have launched an investigation into the lethal shooting and are searching for suspects. No arrests have so far been reported.

The victim is named by Arab outlets as Jamil Mahmoud Diab, a resident of the city in his 60s. Paramedics from al-Zahrawi Medical Center, a local emergency service, were dispatched to the scene of the crime.

This morning, a father and son were killed while driving on the outskirts of Umm al-Fahm. Police are still searching for suspects in the double homicide.

So far this year, 51 members of the Arab community have been killed in crime-related incidents, as crime continues unabated in the community. Last year was Arab society’s deadliest year to date, with 252 homicide deaths over the course of 2025.

Iran says US stance on nuclear issue has become ‘more realistic’

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baqaei during the weekly press conference held at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the capital Tehran, on February 10, 2026. (ATTA KENARE / AFP)

Iran says that the US position on Tehran’s nuclear program “has moved towards a more realistic one,” a day ahead of a second round of talks.

“A cautious assessment is that, from the discussions that have taken place in Muscat to date, at least what we have been told is that the US position on the Iranian nuclear issue has moved towards a more realistic one,” says foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei, according to the official IRNA news agency.

Residents to gather in Kibbutz Kfar Aza for tree planting

Mourners at a ceremony marking the second anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, at Kibbutz Kfar Aza, October 7, 2025. (Luke Tress/Times of Israel)

Around 200 kibbutz members are expected to congregate today at Kibbutz Kfar Aza for the first time since the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, to plant dozens of trees with donors.

Alon Futterman, a former CEO of Keren Hayesod-UIA, who today heads the Kfar Aza Foundation, says the event is being held to honor the many donors, organizations, communities, congregations and businesses that have stood by the kibbutz since terrorists murdered 64 out of 787 residents, and abducted 19 to the Gaza Strip.

“Every representative of a foundation, company or congregation will be escorted by members of the community to plant 56 trees together,” he says, adding that the number is random, and that the aim is eventually to plant 100 saplings. “After that, everyone will come together in the center of the kibbutz for a special ceremony in the donors’ honor.”

Futterman says the kibbutz members are arriving from their temporary homes in Kibbutz Ruhama in southern Israel and Kibbutz Shefayim in the center. He adds that the aim was to plant close to Tu B’Shvat, Israel’s holiday for trees (which this year took place from February 1 to 2), and to take advantage of the presence of so many donors from overseas who are attending a gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

Benny Gantz says ‘there is no governance’ after Bnei Brak violence

Blue and White Party chief MK Benny Gantz leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, February 16, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The state has abandoned its responsibilities and “there is no governance,” Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz charges, following yesterday’s ultra-Orthodox riot in Bnei Brak and this morning’s double murder in the Arab city of Umm al-Fahm.

“Yesterday in Bnei Brak the extremists defeated the state. There is no police presence in the streets. The district commander asks why the entry of female soldiers into the street wasn’t coordinated with him? Heaven forbid Bnei Brak should become ‘Area A.’ Have we lost our minds? Who is in charge here?” Gantz tells reporters ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.

“This morning in Umm al-Fahm, two people were shot dead on the road. Fifty people have been murdered in the Arab community in a month and a half. There is no law and no judge. After the record for murders in the Arab community was broken last year no one was held accountable,” Gantz adds, pledging to establish a government after the next elections that “isn’t afraid to send police into Bnei Brak” and “will back the IDF, those who serve, and the residents of the Negev and the Galilee.”

Israel’s Arkia to launch business class on flights to Europe

Arkia debuts its planned business class seats (Courtesy of Dana Kopel)

Israel’s Arkia plans to capitalize on robust demand for premium travel and will launch a new business class cabin on routes to Europe, starting in the spring with flights to Paris, to compete with local rival El Al and foreign carriers.

“The decision was made against the backdrop of high demand for premium products,” says Arkia CEO Oz Berlowitz at a press conference in Tel Aviv. “We are constantly thinking in depth about how to improve, reach new destinations, and offer the Israeli public a competitive and diverse product that combines quality service, fair prices, and an advanced flight experience.”

The new premium cabin will begin operating on the route to Paris from April on Arkia’s Airbus A320 aircraft with 12 business-class seats at the front of the aircraft. One-way business-class tickets will start selling for $850. For comparison, El Al one-way tickets to Paris in premium class in April start selling at around $905, and with Air France at around $1,068.

Arkia will operate flights to 40 destinations in Europe, the Mediterranean Basin, Asia, and North America during the upcoming spring and summer season. The carrier says it will continue its expansion of long-haul flight operations, including transatlantic routes to New York, and add routes to selected destinations in Asia, including Phuket in Thailand. Earlier this year, Arkia launched its Tel Aviv-to-Hanoi flight service, becoming the first Israeli carrier to operate a direct route to Vietnam.

Starting in mid-June, Arkia is renewing its service to Ibiza in Spain, with two weekly flights tailored for short vacations and weekend getaways, and for longer holidays.

Asher Hayon, Netanyahu’s former chief of staff, dies suddenly at 58

Asher Hayon, a former chief of staff and adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, died suddenly this morning at age 58, the Prime Minister’s Office says in a statement.

Hayon retired from public service in recent years due to health issues, according to Hebrew media reports, which also note that his roles were primarily administrative and strategic, and that he preferred to keep a low profile.

Netanyahu received the news “with deep shock and immense sorrow,” the premier says in the statement, saying he carried out his roles as office director and later as chief of staff in the PMO between 2018 and 2022 “with great loyalty,” adding that their relationship began when Hayon worked as his adviser two decades ago during the premier’s tenure as finance minister.

???? Former Netanyahu Chief of Staff Asher Hayon Dies Suddenly at 58 pic.twitter.com/rZEqc5obke

— Shield of Truth (@ShieldOfTruth_) February 16, 2026

“Asher accompanied me on a daily basis in routine times and in times of emergency. He did so, among other things, during [the 2021 IDF] Operation Guardian of the Walls, during the months of the coronavirus pandemic, and at the time of signing the [2020] Abraham Accords for peace,” Netanyahu adds.

“He possessed sound judgment, a huge heart, and human warmth,” the premier says, noting they stayed in touch in recent years.

Hayon, a Modiin resident, is survived by his wife Miti, their six children, and one grandson.

Lapid warns that opposition will lose next election if they don’t unite

Head of the Yesh Atid party MK Yair Lapid leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on February 16, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Polling shows that the “liberal bloc” opposing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may no longer be able to win the next election, and if members of the opposition continue to work at cross purposes,” we will lose,” warns Opposition Leader Yair Lapid.

“For almost two years, every time I came in here and you asked me about the next elections, I said we will win. We, meaning the bloc, the liberal camp. I can’t say that anymore,” Lapid tells reporters ahead of his Yesh Atid party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset.

“The polls that are being published, and also very worrying in-depth studies that have not been published, say that it is no longer certain that the liberal bloc will win. If we don’t come to our senses – we will lose. If we continue to work against each other – we will lose,” he says, claiming that only his party has the political machine necessary to get out the vote in the next election.

Recent polls show the so-called “change bloc” narrowly edging out the Netanyahu-led right-wing bloc but not quite winning enough seats to form a government without outside support from the Knesset’s Arab parties.

“This is not the time to gamble. You need to play it safe. When you vote for Yesh Atid, you are 100 percent sure that we will not bow down and enter another Netanyahu government. We will not bow down and form a government with the Haredim that will continue with the blackmail and evasion,” Lapid says. “Forming a government is not a hobby – it is a profession. I am the only one in the camp who has done it.”

Recent months have seen tensions between members of the opposition, including between Yashar! chief Gadi Eisenkot and Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz, as well as between Lapid and The Democrats head Yair Golan. Recent tensions within Golan’s party have also reportedly threatened to split the alliance between its constituent Meretz and Labor factions.

“Precisely because the camp is so divided, the key to victory is Yesh Atid. We are not fighting here over the size of parties, we are fighting over the fate of our children, over what kind of country we want to be, and what values ​​it will have,” Lapid says.

Rubio: Difficult to reach deal with Iran, they’re ‘making theological decisions, not geopolitical ones’

US Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a joint news conference with Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Budapest, Hungary, Monday, February 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, Pool)

Speaking during a visit to Hungary on Monday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says reaching a deal with Tehran would be hard.

“I think that there’s an opportunity here to diplomatically reach an agreement that addresses the things we’re concerned about. We’ll be very open and welcoming to that. But I don’t want to overstate it either,” Rubio says.

“It’s going to be hard. It’s been very difficult for anyone to do real deals with Iran, because we’re dealing with radical Shia clerics who are making theological decisions, not geopolitical ones,” he says.

Ultra-Orthodox protesters are blocking traffic at the entrance to Jerusalem

Ultra-Orthodox protesters are blocking traffic at the entrance to Jerusalem, police say.

In footage from the protest near the entrance to the city, at least 100 young Haredi men are seen gathered on both sides of the highway, many of them sitting on the pavement in front of halted cars.

Officers are operating in the area to reopen the road to traffic.

A similar protest took place on Route 38, near Beit Shemesh, but police managed to clear the road of demonstrators within a short time, after protesters stopped traffic in one direction.

The main Route 443 near Modiin was also shut in anticipation of a protest.

מפגינים חרדים חוסמים בשעה זו את הכניסה לעיר ירושלים ואת כביש 38 ליד בית שמש

צילום: חרדים ירושלים pic.twitter.com/SXQYqOnzrk

— שלומי הלר | Shlomi Heller (@Heller_shlomi) February 16, 2026

The protests over efforts to draft ultra-Orthodox youths into the IDF come a day after a mob attacked two female IDF soldiers in Bnei Brak, setting off rioting and clashes with police.

Italy says it stands ready to train police in Gaza

Italian police confront pro-Palestinian demonstrators who took to the streets in downtown Rome late Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2025, after news that a Gaza-bound aid flotilla had been intercepted by Israeli forces in the Mediterranean Sea. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini)

Italy is prepared to help train police forces in Gaza and elsewhere in the Palestinian territories, its foreign minister says, as Rome aims to play a role in stabilizing the Middle East.

“We are ready to train a new Gaza police force, and we are also ready to train a Palestinian police force,” Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani tells a news conference in Rome.

He confirms that Rome was ready to participate as an observer in US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace initiative, and Italy had been invited to attend a meeting of the group this week in Washington.

Liberman says ultra-Orthodox rioters who attacked 2 servicewomen are ‘terrorists’

Yisrael Beiteinu party chairman Avigdor Liberman leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on February 16, 2026.(Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The ultra-Orthodox rioters who attacked two female IDF servicewomen in Bnei Brak yesterday were “terrorists,” Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman declares.

Speaking with reporters ahead of his party’s weekly faction meeting in the Knesset, Liberman rejects claims by coalition lawmakers and Haredi politicians that the rioters only represented a “handful of extremists” rather than mainstream ultra-Orthodox opinion, citing statements against the IDF and conscription by leading rabbis.

Former Sephardic chief rabbi Yitzhak Yosef told followers to tear up and flush enlistment orders and that when the military police arrive, “you should stand up to them,” Liberman recalls. “He is not marginal, he is the mainstream.”

“When Yitzhak Goldknopf, the chairman of the United Torah Judaism party, talks about the draft in terms of the yellow star, this is not marginal. When Rabbi Hirsch says it is a mitzvah to be a deserter, this is not marginal. He is the leader of the Lithuanian public,” he adds.

Sunday’s violence was also fueled by “the government’s revolving door policy,” Liberman continues, noting that all of the suspects arrested during the riot have already been released.

He calls to station battalions of border police in Bnei Brak in order to establish order.

Liberman’s comments come shortly after Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs tells a conference organized by the right-wing Besheva Group that, despite the violence, he does “not think there is a governance problem.”

“There have always been extremist factions, but the mainstream of the Haredi public is law-abiding and upholds its way of life,” he says.

Top Netanyahu aide: Hamas will have 60 days to disarm or IDF will complete the mission

Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs speaks at the Besheva conference in Jerusalem on February 16, 2026 (Screencapture/YouTube)

Hamas will have a 60-day period to disarm, or else Israel will go back to war in Gaza, says Cabinet Secretary Yossi Fuchs.

Speaking in Jerusalem to the Besheva Group conference, Fuchs says that the Trump Administration asked for the 60-day period, and “we are respecting that.”

During that time, says the senior adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Hamas “will have to give up all of its weapons,” including rifles.

The terror group’s AK-47s “will be taken from them entirely,” he says, adding that he is not sure when the period starts, but it might begin with Thursday’s Board of Peace conference.

“We will evaluate it,” he says. “If it works, great. If not, then the IDF will have to complete the mission.”

He says it is a “reasonable estimate” that before Israeli elections that could potentially be held in June, Hamas will have either given up its weapons or the IDF will be in the middle of an intensive military campaign in Gaza.

Fuchs says that there are many tunnels that also need to be destroyed as part of the process, “on our side as well.”

“Today, whoever plows the fields in Be’eri sees the sea,” he says of the Gaza border kibbutz invaded by Hamas on October 7, 2023. “There is barely a building left standing in the Gaza Strip, but the work is not yet completed.”

Obama shuts down alien buzz and says there’s no evidence they’ve made contact

A woman looks at a UFO display outside of the Little A'Le'Inn, in Rachel, Nevada, the closest town to Area 51, July 22, 2019. (AP Photo/John Locher, File)

Former US President Barack Obama said he did not see evidence that aliens “have made contact with us,” after setting social media abuzz by saying aliens were real on a podcast over the weekend.

During a lightning round of questions with podcast host Brian Tyler Cohen, Obama was asked, “Are aliens real?”

“They’re real,” he answered, continuing: “But I haven’t seen them. And, they’re not being kept in Area 51.”

Yesterday, the former president released a statement on Instagram, appearing to clarify what he meant by his comments that have since gone viral.

“I was trying to stick with the spirit of the speed round, but since it’s gotten attention let me clarify. Statistically, the universe is so vast that the odds are good there’s life out there. But the distances between solar systems are so great that the chance we’ve been visited by aliens is low, and I saw no evidence during my presidency that extraterrestrials have made contact with us. Really!”

Secrecy around Area 51, a top-secret Cold War test site in the Nevada desert, has long fueled conspiracy theories among UFO enthusiasts.

In 2013, the CIA acknowledged the existence of the site, but not UFO crashes, black-eyed extraterrestrials or staged moon landings – all common subjects of conspiracy theories.

Declassified documents referred to the 8,000-square-mile (20,700-square-kilometer) installation by name after decades of US government officials refusing to acknowledge it.

The base has been a testing ground for a host of top-secret aircraft, including the U-2 in the 1950s and later the B-2 stealth bomber.

Lapid calls on US to declare Qatar an enemy state

Emir of Qatar Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, left, shakes the hand of US President Donald Trump during a meeting aboard Air Force One at Al Udeid Air Base in Doha, Qatar, October 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid calls on the United States to declare Qatar an enemy state, blaming it for anti-Israel activity in American academia.

Addressing Jewish leaders at a gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Lapid says that he proposed an Israeli law designating Qatar an enemy state and “I call on the US Congress to do the same.”

“What we saw on campuses in the US is the result of Qatari money promoting antisemitism and radical Islam, when at the same time they were paying money to people closest to the prime minister,” he says, referring to the Qatargate scandal, in which aides to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu are suspected of multiple offenses tied to their alleged work for a pro-Qatar lobbying firm.

“Qatar is an enemy of the US, an enemy of Israel, an enemy of the Jewish people and an enemy of the entire world,” Lapid declares.

The Gulf kingdom has lavished billions on US higher education in recent years. It has also hosted top Hamas leaders.

On Sunday, the Ministerial Committee for Legislation voted against Lapid’s bill, prompting him to ask if the Prime Minister’s Office instructed ministers to oppose the legislation.

Israel’s two-man bobsleigh team in 26th spot ahead of finals

Israel's Adam Edelman (front) and Menachem Chen compete in the bobsleigh men's 2-man heat 1 at Cortina Sliding Center during the Milano Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games in Cortina d'Ampezzo on February 16, 2026. (FRANCK FIFE / AFP)

Israel’s two-man bobsleigh team finishes its first two heats at the 2026 Winter Olympics in last place, with the final decisive heats scheduled for tomorrow.

The team, with pilot AJ Edelman and brakeman Menachem Chen, has a combined time of 1:54.60, putting it in 26th position, just behind the athletes from Trinidad and Tobago.

“The team did an amazing job… we’re the least experienced team here,” says Edelman in an interview with Israel’s Sport5 channel right after the race. “The team came together… we’re really impressed and proud.”

Chen says the team is “crazy excited, we know we’re on the biggest stage in the world, and that we’re representing the Jewish people, representing the State of Israel… every day we’re improving and we’re giving it 100%.”

The famed Jamaican team, immortalized in the 1993 film “Cool Runnings,” finishes the heats in 23rd place. The Israeli team has dubbed itself “Shul Runnings” in tribute.

Israel’s four-man bobsleigh team, also led by Edelman, is slated to compete on Saturday and Sunday. The 2026 Games represent the first time Israel has competed in bobsleigh at the Olympics, after Edelman’s six-year campaign to qualify the team.

EU calls on Israel to reverse ‘illegal’ approval of West Bank land registration

This picture shows an Israeli flag fluttering above the Israeli settlement of Beit Romano (unseen), with Palestinian buildings in the background, in the West Bank city of Hebron on February 9, 2026. (HAZEM BADER / AFP)

The European Union calls on Israel to reverse its approval of a process to register land in the West Bank, warning it was a “new escalation.”

“This constitutes a new escalation after recent measures already aimed at extending Israeli control” in the West Bank, EU foreign affairs spokesman Anouar El Anouni says. “We reiterate that annexation is illegal under international law. We call on Israel to reverse this decision,” he added.

US Ambassador to Belgium calls on Brussels to drop charges over illegal circumcisions

US Ambassador to Belgium Bill White has called on the country to drop all charges against three mohels (people who perform ritual circumcision) arrested last summer in a raid, calling the case antisemitic.

In a sharply worded post on X, White says Belgium must drop the “ridiculous and antisemitic ‘prosecution'” of the mohels.

“They are doing what they have been trained to do for thousands of years,” he writes.

In May, police in Antwerp rounded up mohels suspected of illegally conducting the ritual Jewish circumcisions.

Police were concerned that the brit milah ritual was being performed on Jewish baby boys by unlicensed mohels instead of professional doctors. There are no laws specifically regulating Jewish ritual circumcision, but Belgium has laws mandating that all medical procedures must be performed by a licensed doctor.

Some, however, have charged that the raids were part of a larger campaign of intimidation against Jewish religious figures in Belgium.

Indicating that he had the backing of US President Donald Trump, White calls on Belgian Minister of Health Frank Vandenbroucke to stop the country’s “unacceptable harassment of the Jewish community” and deregulate the ritual, which also has documented health benefits.

“It’s 2026, you need to get into the 21st century and allow our brethren Jewish families in Belgium to legally execute their religious freedoms!” he writes. “It’s done in all civilized countries as a legal procedure.”

White says he will meet with the mohels in Antwerp next week, and calls on Vandenbroucke to join him.

“It’s disgusting what’s happened to these fine men and their families because of your inaction,” White writes. “Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter!”

Anti Semitism is UNACCEPTABLE in any form & it must be rooted out of our society.

President TRUMP @POTUS @realDonaldTrump @JDVance @VP @SecRubio @StateSEAS @DeputySecState and I call upon all of Belgium to do a much better job on this subject !

TO BELGIUM,

SPECIFICALLY YOU…

— Ambassador Bill White (@BillWhiteUSA) February 16, 2026

Court releases all 28 people arrested in ultra-Orthodox mob attack on 2 female IDF soldiers

Ultra-Orthodox man arrested by police during riots following an assault on two female Israeli soldiers in Bnei Brak, central Israel, February 15, 2026. (Flash90)

All 28 Haredi men and teens who were arrested during mass riots in Bnei Brak yesterday have been freed, a lawyer representing the suspects tells The Times of Israel.

The riots erupted when a hundreds-strong mob attacked two female soldiers who arrived in the ultra-Orthodox city. Rioters lightly injured five police officers, overturned a patrol car and set an officer’s motorcycle on fire.

Shlomo Hadad, a lawyer representing the detainees, says police argued during today’s hearings that his clients were arrested on suspicion of attacking officers and setting fire to a motorcycle. The court freed them “because there was no evidence for anything,” he claims, characterizing the arrests as a “show for the media.”

However, two of the suspects, while released from detention, were ordered to five days of house arrest over what the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court cited as “reasonable suspicion” that they had assaulted a police officer, Ynet reports.

Four of the detainees were minors, Hadad says, and were thus brought to the Bat Yam Juvenile Court, which ordered their release.

Tel Aviv District police commander Haim Sargaroff told reporters yesterday evening that police were still searching for those who overturned the patrol car and set fire to the motorcycle.

EU Commission to attend Trump’s Board of Peace meeting as observer

EU Commissioner Dubravka Suica will travel to Washington this week to attend a meeting of the Board of Peace, set up by US President Donald Trump, in her capacity as an observer, a spokesperson for the EU Commission says.

“The EU Commission is not becoming a member of the board of peace; we are participating in this meeting precisely in our longstanding commitment to the implementation of the ceasefire in Gaza, as well as to take part in international efforts to support reconstruction and the post-war recovery in Gaza,” spokesperson Guillaume Mercier tells reporters.

Hamas used emojis to signal operatives to launch Oct. 7 assault

Hamas terrorists move towards the Erez crossing between Israel and the northern Gaza Strip, during the terror group's onslaught on October 7, 2023. (Mohammed ABED / AFP)

Hamas used a sequence of emojis sent to its operatives’ phones as a coded signal to launch the October 7, 2023, terror onslaught, according to a report now cleared for publication.

The revelation is first reported by Channel 12 news and approved by the Military Censor, more than two years after the onslaught.

It is believed that the sequence of emojis was used to instruct members of Hamas’s elite Nukhba Force to equip their phones with Israeli SIM cards to be used in Israeli territory and prepare their weapons for the attack.

At 9 p.m. on October 6, 2023, the Shin Bet security agency identified a handful of Israeli SIM cards in the hands of Hamas Nukhba terrorists being activated. The SIM cards are a Shin Bet source in Gaza, and the agency updated IDF intelligence officials on the development via WhatsApp. Later that night, more SIM cards were activated, totaling several dozen.

On the phones seized from Hamas terrorists who invaded Israel on October 7, the IDF identified that the same string of emojis was sent on two previous instances in which Hamas intended to launch its large-scale attack, in May 2023 and September 2022. In May 2023, the Shin Bet also identified dozens of Israeli SIM cards in the hands of Hamas terrorists being activated, though ultimately Hamas did not launch the attack then.

The use of the emojis by Hamas to notify its terrorists to launch the onslaught was only discovered retrospectively as part of the IDF’s investigations into October 7, and was not known in real time.

IRGC starts naval drill in key Hormuz Strait ahead of talks with US

An Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessel watches an American warship in the Strait of Hormuz May 19, 2023. (Jon Gambrell/AP)

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards navy held a drill in the Hormuz Strait, the semi-official Tasnim news agency reports, a day prior to renewed Iran-US nuclear negotiations.

The drill, named “Smart Control of Hormuz Strait,” aimed at testing the readiness of operational forces in the face of “possible security and military threats,” Tasnim reported.

Bennett accuses government of rewarding ultra-Orthodox violence

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men clash with police following an assault on two female Israeli soldiers in Bnei Brak, central Israel, February 15, 2026. (Flash90)

Former prime minister Naftali Bennett accuses the government of rewarding violence after Channel 12 reports that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition is pushing a new draft of the bill exempting yeshiva students from military service by the end of the weekend in order to convince the Haredi parties to support the 2026 state budget in its final readings.

“Those who riot, profit. The government has surrendered to violence and has now announced a reward for the rioters who attacked our female soldiers yesterday: the evasion law is being accelerated,” declares Bennett.

“Netanyahu and the Haredi parties are selling out our soldiers and reservists to people who say ‘we will die and we will not enlist.’ This is bad for the people of Israel and it is bad for the Haredi public,” he continues, citing a common chant at anti-draft rallies. “We will soon replace them and return to running Israel.”

On Sunday afternoon, an ultra-Orthodox mob attacked two female soldiers in Bnei Brak, leading to clashes with police and hours of rioting on the streets of the Haredi city.

Greek police say suicide suspected in death of Israeli producer of ‘Tehran’

Dana Eden attends Kan's 'Tehran' premiere in Israel (Avishag Shaar-Yashuv)

Greek police say that the death of Dana Eden, the Israeli producer of the hit spy thriller “Tehran,” is being investigated as suicide.

Eden was found in an Athens hotel room yesterday after a relative made several failed attempts to reach her.

The case is being treated as suicide based on evidence and testimonies, the police officials say.

Greek investigators found pills at the scene. A coroner also found bruises on the victim’s neck.

“This is a moment of great sorrow for the family, friends, and colleagues,” international production company Donna and Shula Productions says in a statement.

IDF says it killed another six terror operatives holed up in Rafah tunnel over past week

Illustrative: Israeli soldiers climb on the rubble next to the entrance of a tunnel in Rafah, Gaza Strip, December 8, 2025. (AP/Sam Mednick)

The IDF says it has killed another six Palestinian terror operatives who were holed up in a tunnel in southern Gaza’s Rafah, on the Israeli side of the ceasefire line, in the past week.

According to the military, troops of the 7th Armored Brigade carried out several “significant actions” in the tunnels in the eastern Rafah area in the past week, “in order to eliminate additional terrorists residing there.”

A week ago, the IDF said troops exchanged fire with several gunmen who emerged from a tunnel in the area.

In a new update, the military says that yesterday, during scans of the area, it was confirmed that three gunmen were killed in that exchange of fire, and the bodies of six more operatives were located after they were “eliminated as part of the operations carried out along the tunnel route.”

Dozens of Hamas operatives were believed to be trapped underground in the eastern Rafah area, on the Israeli side of the ceasefire line. The IDF has reported killing or capturing some 40 of them in recent months.

The IDF says it is continuing to operate in the area “to eliminate the terrorists in the tunnel routes.”

Oct. 7 survivor files complaint against Culture Minister Zohar for denying massacre

Avi Dabush, an evacuee from Kibbutz Nirim, speaks at an anti-government rally outside the President's Residence in Jerusalem on June 1, 2024. (Charlie Summers/Times of Israel)

An activist and survivor of the October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of southern Israel files a formal complaint against Culture and Sports Minister Miki Zohar for denying the massacre.

Avi Dabush, the executive director of Rabbis for Human Rights and a resident of Kibbutz Nirim, announces in an opinion piece in the Haaretz daily that he filed the complaint with the attorney general and urges other Israelis to follow suit.

The complaint was filed after Zohar defended the Prime Minister’s Office’s efforts to remove the word  “massacre” from the title of a bill establishing an annual commemoration of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack.

Zohar said that using the word reflects a “victim mentality.”

Dabush urges Zohar to be sanctioned under the law criminalizing the denial, minimization or celebration of the Hamas terror group’s October 7 attack on southern Israel that was passed by the Knesset last year.

The legislation, sponsored by Yisrael Beytenu MK Oded Forer, is modeled after a 1986 law prohibiting Holocaust denial. “Anyone who says or writes things denying the October 7 massacre with the intention of defending the terrorist organization Hamas and its partners, expressing sympathy for them, or identifying with them, will be sentenced to five years in jail,” it states.

On October 7, 2023, thousands of Hamas-led terrorists burst across the border into Israel, killing some 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages, while committing many acts of brutality and sexual assault.

Israeli world champion judoka Sagi Muki announces his retirement

Sagi Muki of Israel (white) reacts after defeating Vedat Albayrak of Turkey (not pictured), at the Tel Aviv Grand Slam Judo Championship on February 17, 2023. (Jack Guez/AFP)

Israeli Olympic medalist and world champion Sagi Muki announces that he is retiring from professional judo at age 33.

“Judo for me was never just a sport… it wasn’t just a part of my life, it was my whole life,” says an emotional Muki at a press conference in Netanya. “I’m not retiring because I can’t, I’m retiring because I know exactly what is needed to be a world champion — and if I’m not willing to give it my whole life, I don’t want to stand on the mat.”

In recent years, Muki says, he has married and had a family, and “there are things I’m not willing to miss out on. My dreams haven’t ended, they’ve just found a new direction.”

In both 2015 and 2018, Muki took gold at the European Championships, and in 2019, he won gold at the World Championships in Tokyo. At the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, Muki was part of the Israeli team that won a bronze medal in the mixed team event.

Muki also made headlines for striking up an unlikely friendship with Iranian judoka Saeid Mollaei, who was ordered by Tehran to forfeit to Muki and who later defected from Iran and even visited Israel.

In a statement, the Olympic Committee of Israel thanks Muki for “countless heart-pounding moments, for tears of hope, and for the Israeli pride you spread around the world.” Muki, they say, “always represented us with his heart on the mat and the flag on his chest.”

Gantz says only Israel will be able to disarm Hamas

Blue and White party chairman Benny Gantz attends a Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in Jerusalem, on February 16, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Israel will only be able to guarantee Hamas’s disarmament through Israeli military efforts, Blue and White chairman Benny Gantz tells Jewish leaders at a gathering of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.

“In Gaza, Hamas is reorganizing and rebuilding. The world must understand: Hamas and Gaza must not only be completely demilitarized for the sake of Israeli security, but for the sake of any positive regional process. They will seek to intercept any future normalization efforts, just like they did on October 7,” says the former defense minister and IDF chief.

US President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace “is indeed important for shaping the day-after, but within the Yellow Line, Hamas has strengthened its terror regime for months. Ladies and gentlemen, make no mistake, in the end, it will only be our brave sons and daughters who will finish the job,” he adds.

Regarding Iran, Gantz insists that “in the coming days, or at most, in the coming weeks, the world must stand united in toppling the Iranian ayatollahs’ regime.”

If it does not, the Iranians “will continue to murder others and their own people” and “we will be pushing away regional peace, and a better future for our children, that we all strive for,” he continues, stating that “now is the time for decisive action.”

“Eighty years ago, the United States freed Europe from the Nazi regime. Today, President Trump has the opportunity to free the Middle East from the terror of the ayatollahs’ regime and be remembered forever for it,” Gantz declares.

Settler activists briefly cross into Syria before being stopped by IDF

Several Israeli settler activists breached the border into Syria overnight, before being located and returned to Israel by IDF troops, the military says.

The IDF says the suspects were caught a few minutes after crossing the border, and were handed over to the police for further questioning.

“The IDF strongly condemns the incident and emphasizes that this is a grave incident that constitutes a criminal offense that endangers civilians and IDF troops,” the military adds.

Members of the same group of activists, calling themselves the “Bashan Pioneers” — after the biblical name for the Golan Heights and southern Syria region — have crossed into Syria several times in the past year in attempts to establish settlements.

לפנות בוקר: ניסו לחדור לשטח סוריה – ונעצרו

מספר פעילים מתנועת "חלוצי הבשן" עברו הלילה את גדר המערכת ברמת הגולן והוחזרו לשטח מדינת ישראל. לאחר מכן הועברו לידי המשטרהhttps://t.co/nKs9mjItUk pic.twitter.com/acLF82hL6Z

— ערוץ 7 (@arutz7heb) February 16, 2026

Coalition said pressing Knesset legal adviser to present new version of Haredi draft law

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Boaz Bismuth (center) and committee legal adviser Miri Frenkel Shor (right) during a discussion of the government's proposed law to regulate ultra-Orthodox conscription and exemptions, December 28, 2025. (Noam Moskowitz/Office of the Knesset Spokesperson)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition has called on Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee Legal Advisor Miri Frenkel Shor to present a new draft of the bill exempting yeshiva students from military service by the end of the weekend in order to convince the Haredi parties to support the 2026 state budget in its final readings, Channel 12 reports.

According to the report, when finished, the revision, which is unlikely to be ready on time, will be presented to senior ultra-Orthodox rabbis for approval before being advanced to a committee vote. The ultra-Orthodox Emess news site reports that while there have been talks between Frenkel Shor and Haredi representatives, she has not yet begun writing the revised bill.

“There are no words. A day after the draft dodgers almost carried out a lynching of our female soldiers, the October 7 government is rewarding them with a sweeping law exempting them from service,” Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman posts on X in response.

The Haredi Shas and Degel HaTorah parties voted in favor of the first readings of the 2026 budget and accompanying Arrangements Law but have said that they will withhold their support pending passage of the bill regulating ultra-Orthodox conscription.

Ultra-Orthodox representatives have pushed back hard against changes demanded by Frenkel Shor, who has expressed significant criticism of the bill and called for the addition of several amendments to the legislation that are opposed by the Haredim.

She has previously warned that the bill violates the principle of equality and fails to meet security needs. She has also called to reexamine a clause ending sanctions at age 26 and argued that by effectively resetting the status of yeshiva students who ignored call-up orders over the past year, the legislation would grant legal immunity to Haredim but not to non-Haredi evaders.

IDF pushes back on police claim that soldiers attacked in Bnei Brak were encouraging Haredi enlistement

Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men clash with police following an assault on two female Israeli soldiers in Bnei Brak, central Israel, February 15, 2026. (Flash90)

The IDF pushes back against claims made by the police that the two servicewomen who were attacked by a mob in Bnei Brak yesterday were in the ultra-Orthodox city to encourage enlistment of young Haredi men.

“There is no home visit here; this is the distribution of flyers to pre-induction candidates, to interest them in military units ahead of their enlistment,” Cdr. Elad Klein, chief of the police’s Dan precinct, tells Kan radio this morning.

Klein says that while there is no need for the IDF to “receive approval” for such activities, “I think it is proper and right to update the police so they know to prepare, and we won’t have to go in with a limited force to rescue female soldiers and, in the process, have a patrol car and a bus attacked, a patrol car and a scooter.”

The IDF denies that the two squad commanders at the Education and Youth Corps had been in Bnei Brak to encourage enlistment of Haredi men, and says they were there to visit one draftee at his home ahead of his enlistment and provide him with an information pamphlet.

The military publishes an image of the pamphlet that was given to the draftee, which it says is given out to all soldiers who are set to arrive at the Havat Hashomer training base — intended for recruits who have difficulties entering the army’s framework.

The pamphlet specifies the draftee’s enlistment date, details about the training, and other preparations they should carry out before they officially join the army.

Knesset conference honors female IDF fighters

Soldiers of the mixed-gender IDF Caracal battalion carrying a fellow soldier on a stretcher at the end of a 16 km journey to complete their training course in Tel Nitzan, near the border with Egypt, September 3, 2014. (Hadas Parush/Flash90)

Lawmakers gather in the Knesset for a special conference to honor female fighters less than a day after two IDF servicewomen were attacked by a mob in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak.

Addressing the conference, Lt. Col. Or Ben Yehuda — who until last year served as the commander of the Border Defense Corps’ Caracal Battalion — declares that “It is a great privilege to serve my country and as long as I am worthy, I will do everything to protect this country.”

“There is an amazing generation of female fighters currently growing up in the IDF, and they are going to be amazing, and they are making their way there,” she says.

“The very fact of holding the conference is a clear statement [that] the State of Israel recognizes the contribution of women to its national security,” says Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman.

“Women combatants are not a footnote. They are the heart of the Israeli story. In recent years, we have often discussed the question of whether women should be fighters in the IDF or not…The answer was and remains yes. Women can be fighters in the IDF. Fighters no less good than men,” he continues, noting that women fought and died while defending Israel on October 7.

Amid rumors, production company says no suspicion of foul play in death of ‘Tehran’ producer

Dana Eden and Shula Spiegel attend Apple TV+'s "Tehran" Season 2 Premiere at The Robin Williams Center on May 04, 2022 in New York City. (Roy Rochlin/Getty Images/AFP)

The production company behind the TV show “Tehran” says there is no evidence of foul play in the death of show producer Dana Eden amid rampant rumors on social media that she may have been killed by Iranian agents.

Eden, 52, was found dead in her hotel room in Athens, where the show, which also airs on Apple TV, had been shooting its 4th season.

“The production company wants to make it clear that the rumors of the death being criminal or nationalistic are not true and baseless,” Donna and Shula Productions says in the statement.

“We call on the media and the public not to publish unfounded theories and to act with responsibility and sensitivity. This is a moment of immense pain for the family, friends, and colleagues,” the statement says. “We want to preserve Dana’s dignity and her privacy.

In a statement to the Maariv newspaper, the Israeli embassy in Athens called her death a “tragic incident” and said it was assisting the family.

Two men shot and killed in Umm al-Fahm

Paramedics and police gather at the scene of a shooting that killed two men in Umm al-Fahm on February 16, 2026. (Magen David Adom)

Two men have been shot and killed while driving in Umm al-Fahm, first responders say.

Paramedics found both victims, around 25 years old, without any signs of life. They were pronounced dead at the scene.

Their car had flipped over as a result of the ambush, trapping one of the victims in the vehicle, Ynet reports.

Police have launched an investigation and are searching for the perpetrators. No suspects have yet been arrested.

Since the start of the year, 50 members of the Arab community have been killed in homicides. The soaring death toll just two months into 2026 is followed by the deadliest year on record for Arab Israelis, in which 252 were killed in crime-related incidents over the course of 2025.

Iranian FM to meet IAEA chief in Geneva ahead of US talks

Iran's Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi (R) shakes hands with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi before a meeting in Tehran, Iran, November 14, 2024. (Atta Kenare / AFP)

Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi said he will meet with the director of the UN nuclear watchdog on Monday, the day before a second round of US-Iran nuclear talks is scheduled to begin in Geneva.

Iran and the US renewed negotiations earlier this month to tackle their decades-long dispute over Tehran’s nuclear program and avert a new military confrontation as US warships, including a second aircraft carrier, are deploying to the region.

“I am in Geneva with real ideas to achieve a fair and equitable deal. What is not on the table: submission before threats,” Araghchi says on X.

Araghchi says he will meet International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi today accompanied by nuclear experts “for deep technical discussions.”

The IAEA has been calling on Iran for months to say what happened to its stockpile of 440 kilograms (970 pounds) of highly enriched uranium following Israeli-US strikes in June and to let inspections fully resume, including in three key sites that were bombed: Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan.

New settlement to ‘expand Jerusalem’ for first time since 1967

Palestinian Bedouin houses are pictured in front of the Israeli settlement of Adam, between Jerusalem and Ramallah in the West Bank, on March 4, 2021. (Photo by AHMAD GHARABLI / AFP)

The finance and housing ministries and the West Bank Benjamin Regional Council signed an agreement in recent days for the establishment of a new settlement that will in effect be the first expansion of Jerusalem since 1967, officials and a settlement watchdog say.

The proposed new settlement would technically be a westward expansion of the Adam settlement, which lies very close to Jerusalem’s north-east boundary, and the plans provide for the construction of some 2,780 housing units in a new “neighborhood” for Adam.

But the land on which the new settlement would be built is physically separated from Adam, both by Route 437, a major traffic artery, and by the security barrier.

While the proposed settlement would officially be a neighborhood of Adam, it would have much greater territorial contiguity with the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Neve Yaakov, which is inside Jerusalem’s municipal boundaries, than with Adam.

The settlement would be built on 500 dunams of land lying between the Palestinian towns of Hizma and Al-Ram.

“This is the first time since 1967 that Jerusalem has been expanded into the West Bank,” asserts the Peace Now organization, explaining that all current East Jerusalem settlements were built inside boundaries set by the Israeli government shortly after the Six-Day War.

“Under the pretext of a new settlement, the government is carrying out a backdoor annexation here. The new settlement will function for all intents and purposes as a neighborhood of the city of Jerusalem, and its planning as a ‘neighborhood’ of the Adam settlement is just an excuse and an attempt to hide the move, the implication of which is the application of Israeli sovereignty to territories in the West Bank.”

But head of the Benjamin Regional Council, Israel Ganz, lauds the new development, describing it as “the realization of the settlement vision” for the Benjamin region.

“The new plan will allow us to build thousands of housing units, while at the same time dramatically upgrading the quality of life of the residents,” he says, adding that his council is “already working on additional agreements” which will “herald dramatic change on the ground.”

Israeli charged with spying on ex-defense minister Gallant for Iran

Former defense minister Yoav Gallant arrives at the Likud court for a discussion on the proposal to remove him from the party. September 29, 2025. (Avshalom Sassoni/FLASH90)

Prosecutors file charges against a man for allegedly gathering intelligence on former defense minister Yoav Gallant on behalf of an Iranian agent

The defendant, Fares Abu al-Hija, was arrested in late January after taking photos of streets near Gallant’s home in Amikam at the behest of his handler, according to the indictment filed today.

A joint statement from the police and the Shin Bet security service says the defendant is from the Galilee village of Kaukab Abu al-Hija, about an hour north of Gallant’s residence.

He first came into contact with the Iranian agent on Telegram while searching for work on the messaging app in August last year, prosecutors write.

He was paid in cryptocurrency to carry out intelligence-gathering missions. Before spying on the ex-defense minister, the defendant was allegedly sent by his Iranian handler to take photos and videos of a cafe in Tel Aviv, for which he earned $1,000 in cryptocurrency.

He is indicted on the charge of contact with a foreign agent. Prosecutors are requesting that he be kept in custody until the end of legal proceedings against him.

IDF says Hezbollah operative killed in strike was working to rebuild group’s infrastructure

A Hezbollah operative involved in restoring the terror group’s military infrastructure in southern Lebanon was killed in an Israeli drone strike this morning, the military says.

He was targeted in the town of Hanin.

The IDF says the operative’s activities were a violation of the November 2024 ceasefire deal between Israel and Lebanon.

استهداف سيارة في بلدة حانين pic.twitter.com/pykQfPCCiA

— Lebanon 24 (@Lebanon24) February 16, 2026

Suspicious envelope found at Netanyahu’s office

The Prime Minister's Office in Jerusalem, seen on November 7, 2024. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

A suspicious envelope was found by security staff at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem during an inspection, the PMO’s Security and Emergency Division tells The Times of Israel.

The envelope was handled according to protocol, say the PMO, and the incident is over.

“There was no danger to any of the employees,” says the PMO.

Iran foreign minister arrives in Geneva for second round of talks with US

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, center, heads to the venue for talks between Iran and the US, in Muscat, Oman, February 6, 2026. (Iranian Foreign Ministry via AP, File)

Iran’s foreign minister has arrived in Geneva ahead of a second round of negotiations with the United States, Iranian state television says, as Washington keeps up pressure on the Islamic Republic.

According to Tehran, “indirect” Iran–US nuclear talks mediated by Oman will be held tomorrow, although Washington has previously pushed for other topics to be discussed, including Iran’s ballistic missiles and support for regional proxies.

Tehran and Washington restarted negotiations this month after previous talks collapsed when Israel launched an unprecedented bombing campaign against Iran last June.

Considerable uncertainty surrounds the fate of Iran’s stockpile of more than 400 kilograms of 60-percent enriched uranium that was last seen by nuclear watchdog inspectors in June.

“The foreign minister has arrived in Geneva at the head of a diplomatic and expert delegation to take part in the second round of nuclear negotiation,” Iran’s state-run IRIB writes on its Telegram channel.

During his visit to Geneva, Abbas Araghchi is expected to hold talks with his Swiss and Omani counterparts as well as the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Rafael Grossi, and other international officials, Iran’s foreign ministry says.

Washington has dispatched Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, the White House confirmed yesterday.

Dana Eden, 52, producer of hit show ‘Tehran,’ dies during filming in Athens

Dana Eden attends Apple TV+'s 'Tehran' Season 2 Premiere at The Robin Williams Center on May 4, 2022, in New York City. (Dia Dipasupil/Getty Images/AFP)

Dana Eden, 52, a producer and creator of the hit drama series “Tehran,” died suddenly during filming of the fourth season in Greece, the Kan public broadcaster says.

“In recent days, the fourth season of the series has been filmed in Greece — a complex and significant production, which Dana traveled to closely oversee,” says the statement from Kan mourning her death.

According to Hebrew media, Eden was found lifeless in a hotel in Athens yesterday by her brother, who began searching for her after she failed to respond to messages.

Local police issued an autopsy order to determine the cause of death and began collecting security camera footage and testimony from hotel staff.

According to initial reports, it is not believed that there was foul play.

“Tehran,” the Israeli series about a Mossad agent embedded in the Iranian capital, also streams on Apple TV, which premiered season 3 last month.

Eden’s professional partner was producer Shula Spiegel, the other half of Donna and Shula Productions, through which “Tehran” and many of Eden’s other works were produced.

Eden was known as one of Israel’s most prolific and successful television producers, working on shows such as “Saving the Wildlife,” “She Has It, “Magpie,” and “Shakshouka.”

IDF says it targeted Hezbollah operative in south Lebanon strike

The Israeli Defense Forces say they carried out a strike on a Hezbollah terrorist near the town of Hanin in southern Lebanon.

The military gives no further details.

US conducts first air transport of nuclear microreactor in bid to show technology’s viability

The US Departments of Energy and Defense for the first time transported a small nuclear reactor on a cargo plane from California to Utah to demonstrate the potential to quickly deploy nuclear power for military and civilian use.

The agencies partnered with California-based Valar Atomics to fly one of the company’s Ward microreactors on a C-17 aircraft — without nuclear fuel — to Hill Air Force Base in Utah. Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment Michael Duffey were on the C-17 flight with the reactor and its components, and hailed the event as a breakthrough for US nuclear energy and military logistics.

“This gets us closer to deploy nuclear power when and where it is needed to give our nation’s warfighters the tools to win in battle,” Duffey says.

US President Donald Trump’s administration sees small nuclear reactors as one of several ways to expand US energy production. Trump last May issued four executive orders aimed at boosting domestic nuclear deployment to meet growing demand for energy for national security and competitive AI advancements.

The Energy Department in December issued two grants to help accelerate development of small modular reactors.

Proponents of microreactors also have touted them as energy sources that can be sent to far-flung and remote places, offering an alternative to diesel generators which require frequent deliveries of fuel. But skeptics have argued that the industry has not proven that small nuclear reactors can generate power for a reasonable price.

The Energy Department plans to have three microreactors reach “criticality” — when a nuclear reaction can sustain itself — by July 4, Wright said.

The microreactor in this event, a little larger than a minivan, can generate up to 5 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 5,000 homes, according to Valar CEO Isaiah Taylor. It will start operating in July at 100 kilowatts and peak at 250 kilowatts this year before ramping up to full capacity, he says.

We’re advancing President Trump’s executive order on nuclear energy.

Moments from now, we will airlift a next-generation nuclear reactor. pic.twitter.com/qCcrnGWhAo

— Department of War ???????? (@DeptofWar) February 15, 2026

Prosecutors reportedly to charge settler with reckless homicide over killing of Palestinian activist last year

Yinon Levy works on his farm in the South Hebron Hills, West Bank, May 12, 2024. (Maya Alleruzzo/AP)

Prosecutors will file a reckless homicide indictment against extremist settler Yinon Levy for allegedly shooting Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen last year during a confrontation inside the West Bank village of Umm al-Khair, the Haaretz daily reports.

It marks a rare instance in which a case of settler violence is being prosecuted.

Reckless homicide refers to a situation in which someone knows they are taking an unreasonable risk that could cause death. If convicted, the charge carries a sentence of up to 12 years in jail, Haaretz notes.

Hathaleen, who was featured in the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land” about Israeli home demolitions in the West Bank, was allegedly shot dead by Levi when the latter operated an excavator inside Umm al-Khair and damaged trees and a water pipe inside the village.

Levi founded and operates an illegal farming outpost, Meitarim Farms, in the South Hebron Hills region where Umm al-Khair is located. He also owns a construction and demolition company which is subcontracted by the IDF to carry out demolitions in the West Bank of illegal Palestinian construction.

Levi has also been working in Gaza City, doing demolition work for the army there.

Civil rights organizations have repeatedly accused Levi of being responsible for severe violence and harassment against local Palestinians, using Meitarim Farms as a base for him and young settler extremists to intimidate and attack local communities such as Khirbet Zanuta, whose residents eventually fled their homes in October 2023 in the face of such harassment.

Bondi Beach terrorist, charged with 15 counts of murder, faces court for first time

Gunman Naveed Akram in the course of a deadly terror attack on a Hanukkah event at Bondi Beach, Sydney, Australia, December 15, 2025. (Screengrab used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)

SYDNEY, Australia — Accused Bondi Beach killer Naveed Akram appeared in court via video link for the first time today, national broadcaster ABC reports.

Akram and his father, Sajid, are accused of carrying out a deadly terror attack on a Jewish Hanukkah celebration in December in the nation’s worst mass shooting in nearly three decades.

Akram has been charged with terrorism and 15 counts of murder. Sajid was shot and killed by police during the massacre.

Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.

After All-Star debut, Israel’s Deni Avdija says he feels ‘entire nation’ with him when he plays

Kevin Durant of Team USA Stripes (R) shoots against Deni Avdija of Team World during the 75th NBA All-Star Game at Intuit Dome on February 15, 2026 in Inglewood, California. (Ronald Martinez/Getty Images/AFP)

After competing in his first-ever NBA All-Star Game, Israeli basketballer Deni Avdija thanks Israeli fans who stayed up overnight to watch him play.

“I feel like when I come to play, I come with the entire nation, and it’s fun to show that it’s possible, even for a small country like us,” he tells Channel 12 news at a post-game press conference.

Avdija is the first Israeli in history to have played in the tournament.

Lakers’ LeBron James says he ‘hopefully’ can make it to Israel someday, praises ‘exceptional’ Avdija

Los Angeles Lakers star LeBron James said he hopes to visit Israel and praised basketballer Deni Avdija at a press conference ahead of the NBA All-Star game at the Intuit Dome.

LeBron says he believes Avdija, the first Israeli to be an NBA All-Star player, is an “exceptional” basketballer, answering a question by a Channel 14 reporter.

“I hope I inspire people over there not only to be great in sports, but to be better in general in life, so, hopefully someday I can make it over there,” he said, adding he’s “heard great things” about the country.

LeBron James on Israel:

“I hope I inspire people over there not only to be great in sports, but to be better in general in life, hopefully someday I can make it over there.” pic.twitter.com/Z5rPTzFval

— SM Highlights (@SMHighlights1) February 15, 2026