Jan. 27: Lapid says PM can’t ‘take credit’ for hostages’ return without ‘responsibility for the dead’

Trump calls Erdogan for 2nd time in days to discuss Gaza and Syria

US President Donald Trump (left) greets Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan during a summit to support ending the more than two-year Israel-Hamas war in Gaza after a breakthrough ceasefire deal, October 13, 2025, in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt. (AP/Evan Vucci, Pool)

US President Donald Trump held earlier today his second phone call within days with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with the two leaders discussing developments in Syria and Gaza.

“Voicing his hope that the Gaza Board of Peace will accomplish auspicious works, President Erdogan expressed his belief that ending the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and rebuilding Gaza will pave the way for lasting peace in our region,” says a Turkish readout.

Erdogan also expressed his support for the implementation of a ceasefire in Syria where the government is looking to gain control over areas previously held by Kurdish forces.

Netanyahu: Around 50 people will be allowed daily into Gaza through Rafah

Trucks line up to enter the Egyptian gate of the Rafah crossing, heading for inspection by Israeli authorities before entering the Gaza Strip, Jan.27, 2026. (AP/Mohamed Arafat)

The Rafah Crossing “will be open in both directions” when it finally resumes operations soon, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirms.

He says he doesn’t know the exact number of pedestrians who will be allowed into Gaza every day, but estimates it at “50 people plus family members coming in.”

“We are not going to prevent anyone from leaving,” he adds.

Netanyahu says he believes “there will be no open access — it is not going to be opened for goods. People pass through — yes, people go out, people come in — but they are checked, thoroughly checked [by Israel].”

He says the opening of the Rafah Crossing was agreed by Israel in Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan, but was conditional on Hamas meeting its obligations in the first phase of the plan, which has now been achieved with the locating and return of the final deceased hostage, Ran Gvili.

And he asserts that Israel will continue to maintain overall security control at Rafah.

Bismuth says legislation regulating Haredi enlistment is ready for committee vote

Likud MK Boaz Bismuth (center) leads a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, January 27, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman MK Boaz Bismuth (Likud) announces that his parliamentary panel has finished discussing all clauses of the government’s controversial bill regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment and that its members will soon vote on advancing it to its final two readings in the Knesset plenum.

“I am excited to announce that the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee has completed reading all sections of the conscription law. We are reaching the finish line [and] will soon vote in the committee on the law [advancing to its] second and third reading,” says Bismuth.

“What dragged on for years, what got stuck over and over again in endless discussions, moved forward on my watch because there was a clear goal: a law,” Bismuth claims, adding that the legislation is now moving on “to the next stage.”

“Now it is the role of the entire Knesset to continue the path until the law is approved by the Knesset plenum, a historic conscription law that will strengthen the IDF and Israeli society as a whole.”

The bill — which introduces measures aimed at increasing military conscription among members of the Haredi community but ultimately enshrines continued exemptions for full-time yeshiva students — has garnered opposition both among the opposition and members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s own coalition.

During a discussion in the committee earlier today, Likud MK Yuli Edelstein cited recent statements by Haredi rabbinic leaders boasting that the controversial legislation will not lead to an increase in enlistment as proof that the bill was not a serious effort to boost conscription.

Netanyahu defends IDF conscription legislation as ‘a real bill’ that will boost Haredi enlistment

Ultra-Orthodox soldiers from the Hasmonean Brigade take part in a ceremony, after completing seven months of basic and advanced training, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City on August 6, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defends the government’s Haredi conscription regulation bill during tonight’s press conference, saying that 27,000 Haredim will be enlisted within the next three years under the legislation.

Opponents of the bill, including a small number within the coalition, say it is actually crafted to maintain the decades-old exemption of almost all Haredim from military service.

“27,000 [will be enlisted] within three years. We brought a real bill,” Netanyahu says, defending the government’s proposed military conscription bill for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students in response to a question on whether he believes the bill will succeed in getting the Haredi community to serve.

Netanyahu then accuses the opposition of having pushed an “evasion bill,” a term used by critics to describe the current government’s proposal, in the previous government.

In contrast, he says, “we brought a real law that will bring in tens of thousands [of Haredi recruits]. We are creating special frameworks so that a young Haredi man can enter [the military] and leave still Haredi,” he says.

“We are really making a very large effort, with enormous budgets [to support reservists] – but we absolutely must add fighters, and we will add fighters, and there are enough,” he continues. “One can sustain the Torah world on the one hand and serve in the IDF — there are enough who will do so.”

Netanyahu: Still haven’t decided on law limiting price Israel can pay for hostages

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he is in discussions about enacting a law based on the recommendations of the 2008 Shamgar Committee drastically limiting the price Israel pays for hostages.

“I haven’t brought it to the cabinet,” he says in a moment of openness. “I want to think about it. It’s a very complex question, very difficult. It’s not a given.”

“The law needs to serve real life, not life serving the law,” he says.

His government, he continues, needs to decide what limitations they want to place on themselves for future hostage deals.

“My immediate instinct is to say yes, but I want to think about its various aspects, in a very realistic and responsible way,” he says.

Israel released some 4,000 jailed Palestinian terrorists, security prisoners, Gazan terror suspects detained during the war, along with the bodies of Palestinian terrorists, in exchange for the Israeli hostages returned by Hamas. In 2011, a Netanyahu-led government freed 1,027 Palestinian security prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar, the architect of the October 7, 2023, invasion, in exchange for kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit.

Hezbollah operative killed in south Lebanon airstrike, says IDF

A Hezbollah operative who was involved in attempting to restore the terror group’s infrastructure in southern Lebanon was killed in an Israeli airstrike earlier today, the IDF announces.

The operative was targeted in the southern Lebanese town of Deir Qanoun.

The military says the operative’s activities constituted a violation of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.

Biden aides accuse ‘ungrateful’ Netanyahu of lying after PM blames ex-president for fallen troops

US special envoy Amos Hochstein talks to reporters following his meeting with Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri (not pictured) in Beirut on November 20, 2024. (AFP)

A top aide to former US president Joe Biden accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of lying after the Israeli premier claimed that IDF soldiers lost their lives in Gaza as a result of an alleged arms embargo instituted by the previous administration.

“Netanyahu is both not telling the truth and ungrateful to a president that literally saved Israel at its most vulnerable moment,” Amos Hochstein tells the Axios news site moments after the prime minister made the claim during a press conference.

Hochstein was joined by fellow top Biden aide Brett McGurk, who told Axios, “That statement by Netanyahu is categorically false.”

“Biden left office with a ceasefire in Gaza and hostages coming home, a ceasefire in Lebanon with Hezbollah defeated, Iran in its weakest position since 1979 after two failed missile attacks thanks to the deployment of US military forces and a coordinated response that destroyed Iran’s air defenses. His commitment to Israel’s security to include US military assistance was unwavering throughout the crisis,” McGurk says of Biden.

Netanyahu has repeatedly accused the previous administration of instituting an arms embargo during the Gaza war — something Biden officials have long denied, arguing that Washington only withheld one shipment of high-payload bombs due to concerns they’d be used in densely populated areas, putting civilians at risk.

Netanyahu made the accusation in an apparent effort to explain comments he made in an interview with The Economist during which he claimed that Israel lost soldiers in Gaza because of his “refusal” to “carpet bomb” cities before the IDF invaded them on foot.

Critics of the premier pointed out that his Likud party repeatedly blasted political rival and former IDF chief of staff Benny Gantz for making similar comments to foreign press while explaining the Israeli military’s efforts to avoid civilian casualties.

It’s hard to find people to run Gaza who weren’t in Hamas or PA, says Netanyahu

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a press conference in Jerusalem on January 27, 2026. (Lazar Berman/Times of Israel)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu argues that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian Authority are happy with the makeup of the 12-member National Committee for the Administration of Gaza.

“They took old families, not everyone, those who aren’t refugees, and took generally businessmen,” he says of the efforts to find people to sit on the committee.

“There’s a simple truth in Gaza,” says Netanyahu. Almost everybody “either worked for Hamas, or they worked for the PA. If you try to look for a water engineer who wasn’t in either, you won’t find one.”

Netanyahu stresses that Israel is vetting officials to make sure those from Hamas’s military wing aren’t included.

“The important thing is, who will pay their salaries, and the most important thing is to take apart Hamas and not let the PA enter,” he says.

Asked about taking responsibility for the October 7, 2023, failures, Netanyahu says “everyone will take their responsibility” once “the truth” is credibly established. Rather than a powerhouse state commission of inquiry, as most Israelis have consistently told pollsters is required, the prime minister again advances his preferred inquiry panel appointed by government and opposition, citing the US inquiry into 9/11 as a precedent. The opposition has dismissed the idea, but the coalition is nonetheless advancing legislation to this effect.

Netanyahu: Israeli soldiers lost their lives in Gaza because of Biden-era arms embargo

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a press conference in Jerusalem on January 27, 2026. (Maayan Toaf/GPO)

Leveling an incendiary accusation at the Biden administration, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu charges that some Israeli soldiers lost their lives in the war against Hamas because of what he says was an “embargo” that caused Israel to run out of ammunition.

He does not specify how many soldiers lost their lives for this reason, or precisely when it happened.

The prime minister does not directly name the Biden administration, but says that the embargo ended as soon as US President Donald Trump took office.

Netanyahu has repeatedly accused the Biden administration of instituting an embargo on arms supplies to Israel, notably in June 2024. Biden has denied withholding arms from Israel, apart from a batch of 2,000-pound “bunker buster” bombs amid concerns about how they would be used in the IDF’s operations in Rafah at that time.

In remarks late in his press conference, not prompted by a question, Netanyahu says Israel paid “very heavy prices” in the war in terms of the loss of soldiers’ lives. While “part of that is what happens in war,” he says, part of it stemmed from the fact that “at a certain stage, we didn’t have enough ammunition.”

Soldiers at the time were fighting in areas where artillery and air force weaponry had been used, but terrorists had remained in booby-trapped houses, he says.

“Heroes fell” because they didn’t have the ammunition they needed, he charges. And “part of that absent ammunition was because of the embargo.”

Netanyahu says he has resolved that this will never be allowed to happen again, and that is why he is determined to ensure that Israel has its own strong and independent arms industry. To that end, he says, he is aiming to shift the Israel-US relationship “from aid to partnership,” when it comes to weapons, with Israeli development and joint production, and that such a partnership could extend to allies, including India and Germany as well.

He has prioritized establishing a robust domestic army industry “for maximal independence,” Netanyahu says, “so we don’t run out of weapons or ammunition, and in the hope that we won’t have to use them.”

NY judge cuts sentence of Hasidic therapist imprisoned for child sex abuse

Nechemya Weberman was convicted and sentenced to 103 years for child sexual abuse, October 16, 2012. (AP/Bebeto Matthews)

Nechemya Weberman, an unlicensed therapist in the New York City Hasidic community who was imprisoned for abuse in 2013, has his sentence cut.

Weberman was initially sentenced to 103 years in prison in a high-profile case for the city’s Jewish community. The sentence was reduced months later to 50 years.

Weberman was convicted of 59 counts, including sustained sexual abuse of a child, endangering the welfare of a child and sexual abuse.

Judge Matthew J. D’Emic of the Kings County Supreme Court in Brooklyn cuts that sentence further, resentencing Weberman to 18 years in prison, meaning he can be released five years from now.

Weberman also admitted to his crimes and apologized to the victim for the first time.

Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez backed a move to issue a new sentence for Weberman last year. An array of Jewish leaders also backed his release in a letter to New York Governor Kathy Hochul that was first reported by The Times of Israel in November.

The letter argued against Weberman’s “excessive sentence” and said he was a “scapegoat,” while condemning his crimes.

The Brooklyn district attorney’s office said last year that his sentence was “wildly outside the range for other defendants convicted of the same crimes.”

“This was a horrific case and we stand by the conviction, which warranted a significant prison term. But the extreme 103-year sentence in a politicized environment was excessive and unjust, and with today’s proceeding the defendant admitted his guilt, apologized to the victim for his crimes, and the court resentenced him within the normal range for this type of criminal conduct,” a spokesperson for the district attorney’s office says.

“Accountability does not end upon the defendant’s eventual release: he will be a registered sex offender for the remainder of his life and subject to monitoring for a decade to ensure community safety. We will continue to vigorously prosecute sex offenders and stand with survivors, mindful to do equal justice based on the facts of each case,” the spokesperson says.

Za’akah, a nonprofit that supports Jewish community survivors of abuse, expresses “outrage” over the resentencing and adds that Weberman’s victim opposed the move.

“This decision is a devastating betrayal of survivors. It tells them that the system meant to protect them is willing to prioritize their abusers over their safety and justice. Nechemya Weberman’s early release endangers the community,” says the director of Za’akah, Asher Lovy. “Justice must never be compromised by community pressure or political considerations. We are outraged by this decision.”

Netanyahu on reported indirect US talks with Iran: Trump will make own decision, we are updated

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a press conference in Jerusalem on January 27, 2026. (Maayan Toaf/GPO)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declines to comment directly on reports that the US is in indirect contact with Iran through Arab mediators about finding a diplomatic solution to its nuclear program.

“The US is in constant contact with us,” he says at a Jerusalem press conference. “I don’t want to determine for President Trump what he does or doesn’t do. Whether he speaks or doesn’t speak. Those are his decisions.”

“We are fully updated,” says Netanyahu.

Netanyahu: Investigation of Tzachi Braverman is ‘one gigantic fake’

Justice Minister Yariv Levin (L), Interior Minister Aryeh Deri (2nd L), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Tzahi Braverman (R) at a cabinet meeting in Jerusalem, January 8, 2023. (Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu decries suspicions of illegal activity surrounding his chief of staff, Tzachi Braverman, as entirely unfounded.

“This is one gigantic fake,” the premier says in answer to a question about the investigation of an alleged meeting where, according to Netanyahu’s former aide Eli Feldstein, Braverman said he could “turn off” a military probe into Feldstein’s leaking of classified material to the German tabloid Bild.

“Forget it — it’s fake,” he continues, saying the investigation is part of a broader trend, where “time after time after time they did this to senior figures in the state. And in the end it came out completely baseless,” apparently referring to the judicial system.

“There is simply a terrible witch-hunt here. I think it is harmful not only to human beings and to the families of those under investigation; it is also harmful to democracy. If you want to bring down the prime minister – go to the ballot box. That is where you bring him down, not through covert methods, through terrible means – criminal ones – being used all the time, methods that are exposed in court,” he says, without specifying what crimes have been exposed.

He says if his own court trial hearings were broadcast live, “then people would see what they do to witnesses, what they do to people,” again without elaborating or providing details. His corruption court trial is not broadcast live, but it is open to journalists who report on the proceedings.

Red Crescent: 2 wounded, one seriously, by IDF gunfire in southern West Bank

Two Palestinians were wounded by IDF gunfire, one of them seriously, a short while ago in Dahariya, in the southern West Bank, the Palestinian Red Crescent Society says.

The IDF does not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Red Crescent statement comes after Palestinian media reported clashes between locals and the IDF in Dahariya.

Footage published by some outlets earlier tonight showed two military vehicles driving around a traffic circle in the city, with blasts in the background that the outlets say are caused by stun grenades fired by Israeli troops.

#متابعة| قوات الاحتلال تطلق قنابل الصوت خلال المواجهات في الظاهرية، جنوب الخليل. pic.twitter.com/PENNc8a1ou

— المركز الفلسطيني للإعلام (@PalinfoAr) January 27, 2026

PM on Saudi pivot to Qatar, Turkey: Potential partners shouldn’t support those who delegitimize Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a press conference in Jerusalem on January 27, 2026. (Screenshot/GPO)

The Times of Israel’s diplomatic correspondent, Lazar Berman, asks Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his press conference whether he still thinks normalization with Saudi Arabia is possible in the near future, given Riyadh’s pivot toward Turkey and Qatar and away from the United Arab Emirates.

Netanyahu says he has no wish to be an analyst of the Saudis, but he’s closely following such developments.

“We expect from anybody who wants normalization or peace with us that they not participate in efforts steered by forces or ideologies that want the opposite of peace,” Netanyahu says.

Such efforts “reject the legitimacy of the State of Israel, and nurture all kinds of forces that attack the State of Israel.”

He goes on to say that he’d be “happy to have a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia,” provided “they want normalization and peace with a secure and strong Israel.”

Netanyahu says Qatargate suspect Urich ‘did not speak a single word to me about Qatar’

Aide to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Qatargate suspect Jonatan Urich arrives for a Supreme Court hearing on his appeal against his remand in custody, in Jerusalem, May 9, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu asserts his innocence while addressing suspicions surrounding his adviser Jonatan Urich in the so-called Qatargate affair during this evening’s press conference.

Asked why he has not disavowed Urich in light of accusations that the top aide took Qatari money to spearhead a public relations campaign for Doha while working in the Prime Minister’s Office, Netanyahu claims that “Jonatan Urich did not speak a single word to me about Qatar — not even a syllable.”

“But I spoke about Qatar. I criticized Qatar — not once and not twice — during the war. I attacked it verbally because I had harsh criticism,” he says. “And I actually attacked in Qatari territory,” he adds, referring to the failed strke on Hamas leaders in Doha in September.

“I don’t know what happened with Jonatan Urich, [but] I do know what the judge said,” the premier continues, declaring that Judge Menachem Mizrahi of the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court — who has repeatedly ruled in favor of the premier’s aides, only to be overturned by a higher court – “said there are flying camels here. There is nothing here.”

While Mizrahi did recently rule that there was “no evidentiary” justification for continued restrictive conditions on Urich, he said so in the context of the Bild-leaked documents investigation, not the Qatargate investigation. And Lod-District Court Judge Yaakov Spasser overturned Mizrahi’s ruling on appeal, extended the restrictions on Urich, and said there was “reasonable suspicion, at a substantive level, that justifies the request.”

IDF says Jordanian soldiers approached border but did not enter Israel, incident is over

In an update, the IDF says that no suspects breached into Israeli territory from Jordan this evening, after around 10 individuals were identified approaching the border “in a suspicious and fast manner” near the community of Paran.

According to security sources, the individuals were Jordanian soldiers who had approached the Israeli border but did not cross it. The Jordanian soldiers were apparently chasing after suspects who tried to breach into Israel.

The IDF says it dispatched numerous troops, including special forces and aircraft, to scan the area. Following the scans and roadblocks, “an infiltration into Israeli territory was ruled out,” the army says.

“The incident is over, there is no fear of a security incident,” the IDF adds.

Netanyahu meets in Jerusalem with Board of Peace’s top Gaza envoy

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu meets with former UN envoy Nickolay Mladenov, who is slated to serve as a Board of Peace envoy to Gaza, in his Jerusalem office on January 8, 2026. (Amos Ben Gershom/GPO)

The top Gaza envoy for the Board of Peace, Nickolay Mladenov, is meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem.

The meeting comes after Mladenov visited the Civil-Military Coordination Center in Kiryat Gat earlier today.

75-year-old tourist said to be arrested for spying on military HQ in Tel Aviv

The Kirya IDF headquarters in central Tel Aviv, seen March 21, 2018. (Moshe Shai/Flash90)

A 75-year-old tourist was arrested yesterday outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv on suspicion of working for “hostile actors,” Ynet reports.

He was arrested after Defense Ministry security guards spotted him wandering around the area for a long time, taking pictures of buildings and roads in the base’s vicinity.

Earlier today, his detention was reportedly extended until tomorrow by a Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court judge. Police argued during his remand hearing that he was carrying out “preparatory work” for “hostile actors.”

The suspect also reportedly went on a nearby bridge to take pictures of the Defense Ministry headquarters.

Police seized a computer and a flash drive from the man’s home and are seeking to keep him in custody so they can search the contents of the two devices.

According to Ynet, security guards deleted pictures from his phone that they argued were taken within the base premises.

Netanyahu: Israel ‘needs stability,’ not an early election

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a press conference in Jerusalem on January 27, 2026. (Lazar Berman/Times of Israel)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that “the last thing” Israel currently needs is to hold an election, in response to a question on whether the next national vote will happen on schedule during his press conference tonight.

Asked whether he believes the Haredi draft law and state budget bill will pass in their second and third readings, and that the election will be held on schedule, Netanyahu replies: “That is both my aspiration and my hope. And I think everyone knows what a sensitive and unusual situation we are in. The last thing Israel needs in this situation is an election.”

“We need stability, and I don’t need to spell that out – it’s understood. I hope everyone will understand the national responsibility required at this moment. That’s all I can say to you,” he says.

Alluding to the ultra-Orthodox parties, he says those from his bloc who might consider partnering with his opponents, led by Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, would in effect be joining forces with the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamic Movement, referencing the Ra’am party led by Mansour Abbas, a partner in the 2021-22 Bennett-Lapid coalition.

Under the law, a national election must be held by the end of October this year. If the budget fails to pass or the Knesset disperses, an election will be held earlier.

Lapid: Netanyahu can’t ‘take credit’ for hostages’ return without ‘responsibility for the dead’

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid leads a meeting of his Yesh Atid faction at the Knesset in Jerusalem, January 19, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Opposition Leader Yair Lapid slams Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “taking credit” for the return of the last of 251 hostages who were taken to Gaza on October 7.

“It is impossible to celebrate the return of the hostages without remembering the circumstances under which they were abducted,” writes Lapid on X, in response to Netanyahu’s press conference lauding the return yesterday of the body of Ran Gvili, the last hostage in Gaza.

“Anyone who wants to take credit for the hostages who returned must also take responsibility for the dead, the murdered, and for the greatest disaster to befall the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” Lapid adds.

The opposition leader says Netanyahu should not champion the return of “all the hostages” since “46 hostages who were taken alive were murdered in Hamas captivity while waiting in vain for their release.”

Government hostage point man marks completion of ‘hardest mission of my life’

Government hostage pointman Gal Hirsch speaks at a press conference in Jerusalem on January 27, 2026. (Screenshot/GPO)

Government hostage point man Gal Hirsch says that returning all the hostages from Gaza was “the hardest mission” of his life, in tearful remarks during this evening’s press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“It was the hardest mission of my life,” Hirsch says, speaking alongside the premier a day after the body of Ran Gvili, the final hostage, was located by the IDF and brought back to Israel.

“I wish to express, with humility and deep gratitude, my thanks to this entire team, the support team, on this day that is not a holiday, yet is great and painful and joyful all at once,” Hirsch says.

He thanks security and diplomatic teams across the globe for their assistance in the mission, putting special emphasis on US President Donald Trump and his top aides and envoys for helping secure the release of all the hostages.

Red Crescent says settlers stoned its medics as they tried reaching West Bank village

The Palestinian Red Crescent Society says its medics were stoned by settlers while trying to reach Khirbet al-Fakhit, one of the hamlets that make up Masafer Yatta south of Hebron, following a settler attack there.

The organization does not immediately say if there are injuries in Fakhit, where Palestinian media reports that settlers assaulted people and set fire to property.

Footage published on social media shows settlers around a flaming structure, reportedly in Masafer Yatta.

בשעה זו מתקפת מתנחלים בדרום הר חברון שכוללת הצתות, דיווחים על פצועים. מסתמן כי המתקפה מתרחשת במספר מוקדים במקביל.

תיעוד – 27 א pic.twitter.com/07q3OTk96P

— Matan Golan (@MatanGolanPhoto) January 27, 2026

Separately, the Red Crescent reports a 13-year-old boy was evacuated to the hospital from the central West Bank’s Qalandiya refugee camp a short while ago after being hit in the foot by live IDF gunfire.

The IDF does not immediately respond to a request for comment on the incidents in Qalandiya or near Hebron.

Netanyahu repeats warning against Iran making ‘grave mistake’ of attacking Israel

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeats the warning he made against Iran last week that if the country attacks Israel, Jerusalem will respond harshly.

“Now, it is true — the Iranian axis is trying to recover — but we will not allow it to do so. If Iran makes the grave mistake of attacking Israel, we will respond with a force Iran has never seen before,” he says.

Netanyahu stresses no Gaza reconstruction before disarmament and no Palestinian state

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a press conference in Jerusalem on January 27, 2026. (Screenshot/GPO)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses concerns surrounding phase two of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza plan, asserting that Israel’s political and security interests will be met.

With all the hostages returned, “now we are focusing on completing the two remaining missions: dismantling Hamas’s weapons and demilitarizing Gaza of arms and tunnels,” the premier says.

“As I agreed with President Trump… there are only two possibilities: either this will be done the easy way or it will be done the hard way, but in any case, it will happen,” he says. “I am already hearing the statements that we will allow Gaza’s reconstruction before demilitarization. That will not happen.”

“I am hearing that we will bring Turkish soldiers and Qatari soldiers into Gaza. That too will not happen,” he adds.

“I am hearing that I will allow the establishment of a Palestinian state in Gaza. That did not happen, and it will not happen,” Netanyahu says, with extra emphasis. “I think all of you know that the one who repeatedly stopped the establishment of a Palestinian state is me, together with my colleagues in the governments I have led. Even today and tomorrow, we will not allow this.”

“Israel will maintain security control over the entire area from the Jordan River to the sea, and that applies to the Gaza Strip as well,” he concludes.

IDF searching for suspects who crossed Jordanian border, says there’s no security threat

The infiltration incident on the Jordanian border is under control, police say, after two suspects entered Israeli territory near the community of Paran, prompting the IDF to dispatch troops to the scene.

In addition, at least eight apparent Jordanian soldiers were identified trying to chase after the two suspects as they infiltrated Israel. However, all eight returned to Jordan, according to security sources.

The IDF is still searching for the two suspects who breached the border, though police say that “a security incident has been ruled out.”

Netanyahu: I always believed ‘we could and would bring all our hostages home’

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu holds a press conference in Jerusalem on January 27, 2026. (Screenshot/GPO)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu begins his press conference this evening by asserting that he always believed all the hostages could be returned home from Gaza, “even in the face of pressures from both inside and out.”

“Yesterday we completed in full the sacred mission of bringing back all of our hostages,” he says a day after the return of the final hostage, Ran Gvili.

“I believed that through the combination of military pressure and diplomatic pressure we could — and would — bring all of our hostages home,” he says.

He adds: “What is more important in war than anything else is to ignore the background noise, to stand cool-headed in the face of pressures from within and from without, to understand what needs to be done and to pursue it with all one’s might — to achieve the objective.”

“Many generations will draw inspiration from Ran Gvili, a hero of Israel, and from all our other heroes, whose courage was revealed in all its glory in the War of Redemption,” he said, using his preferred term for the war triggered by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre. “This is the generation of heroism. This is the generation of victory.”

Netanyahu thanks the IDF, Shin Bet, Israel Police, US President Donald Trump, and members of his government for their assistance in returning the hostages, naming former Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and hostage pointman Gal Hirsch — the latter of which he is jointly holding the press conference with — in particular.

IRGC: If attack launched from territory of Iran’s neighbors, they’ll be considered ‘hostile’

An Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commander warns that neighboring countries will be “considered hostile” if their territory is used to attack Iran, after a US carrier group arrived in Middle Eastern waters.

“Neighboring countries are our friends, but if their soil, sky, or waters are used against Iran, they will be considered hostile,” Mohammad Akbarzadeh, political deputy of the IRGC naval forces, is quoted as saying by the Fars news agency.

Several suspects believed to have infiltrated into Israel from Jordan, says IDF

The IDF says it detected an infiltration into Israeli territory from Jordan near the community of Paran a short while ago.

Several suspects are believed to have crossed the border into Israel.

“The troops are conducting extensive searches and blocking roads in the area in order to locate the suspects,” the army says.

A siren sounded in Paran, warning residents to stay in their homes until further notice.

IDF troops responding to report of suspected infiltration on Jordan border

IDF troops are responding to reports of a suspected infiltration on the border with Jordan.

A siren sounds in the community of Paran, warning civilians to stay in their homes until further notice.

Further details are under review by the army.

27 stolen Israeli-owned cars recovered from Palestinian cities in West Bank

Police and Civil Administration officials announce the recovery of dozens of stolen Israeli vehicles from major Palestinian cities in the West Bank.

A total of 27 vehicles were returned to their owners today after being located in Nablus, Jenin, Ramallah, Jericho and Tulkarem, says the Civil Administration, which is responsible for managing civilian affairs in the West Bank.

The vehicles were transferred to Coordination and Liaison Administration officers via “coordination routes,” the agency adds, referring to Palestinian Authority forces. All vehicles underwent an examination by police bomb disposal experts before being handed back to their owners.

Among the vehicles recovered is a tractor stolen three years ago from a date palm grove in the Jordan Valley, police say. It was found in Jenin and returned to its owner earlier today.

According to the Civil Administration, more than 200 stolen vehicles have been recovered from Tulkarem alone, then handed over to Israeli authorities in the past year.

Herzog to fly to Australia in wake of Bondi Beach Hanukkah shooting

President Isaac Herzog speaks during a ceremony marking the lighting of the first Hanukkah candle at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, on December 14, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

President Isaac Herzog will take off on February 8 for Australia at the invitation of the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Governor-General Sam Mostyn, and the Australian Jewish community, Herzog’s office says.

The visit comes in the wake of the deadly shooting at Bondi Beach during a Hanukkah celebration last month, in which 15 people were killed.

Herzog will be accompanied by World Zionist Organization chief Yaakov Hagoel and Jewish Agency chairman Doron Almog.

He will meet Jewish communities and bereaved families, as well as senior Australian officials, his office says.

After call with Sharaa, Trump says Syria is ‘working out very well’

This handout photograph released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on November 10, 2025, shows US President Donald Trump (L) shaking hands with Syria's President Ahmed al-Sharaa at the White House in Washington DC. (Handout / SANA / AFP)

US President Donald Trump says he just got off the phone with the “highly-respected” Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa.

Trump says the situation there is “working out very well, so we’re very happy about it,” apparently referencing Sharaa’s efforts to take control over Syrian territory previously controlled by Kurdish forces.

Asked about Gaza, Trump says it’s also going “very well,” recalling yesterday’s retrieval of the body of the last Israeli hostage in the Strip, Ran Gvili.

80% of all draft evaders are ultra-Orthodox, IDF general tells Knesset

Haredi men block the road outside the IDF recruitment center in Jerusalem on November 12, 2025. (Sam Sokol/Times of Israel)

Nearly 80 percent of Israelis currently classified as draft evaders hail from the ultra-Orthodox community, Brig. Gen. Shay Tayeb, head of the IDF Personnel Directorate’s Planning and Personnel Management Division, tells the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.

According to Tayeb, 49% of those designated as draft evaders or who have received an order known as tzav 12 for not showing up when ordered, are Haredi, while around 25-30% more, in cases which there is no definitive identification, are “likely Haredi” based on indications such as educational background and other factions.

Tayeb says that the total number of people who have either been designated as evaders or have received a tzav 12 stands at 68,000, a significant increase over the 13,000 on record only two years ago.

“The trend is clear; the numbers have grown at dramatic rates. Most entries into this group of evaders and ‘order 12’ cases are naturally occurring due to the [draft] orders, the lack of a law, and the absence of deferments. It appears they are from the ultra-Orthodox public,” he says.

The IDF has sent out tens of thousands of enlistment orders to previously exempt Haredim since 2024, when the High Court of Justice ruled that the decades-long blanket exemptions from army duty traditionally afforded to full-time Haredi yeshiva students were illegal.

“What’s amazing about this fact is that 80 percent of them are Haredi and this percentage is only growing all the time, both in numbers and percentages,” committee member Moshe Tur-Paz (Yesh Atid) tells The Times of Israel. “It’s three to four times the relative share in the population, so it’s a huge percentage, of course. And contrary to [the spin] they tried to present in the past weeks here, the facts are very clear to the general public.”

Israel envoy removes hostage pin at General Assembly on Holocaust Remembrance Day

Israeli Ambassador to the UN Danny Danon removes his hostage pin during a speech to the General Assembly on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2026. (Screenshot/UN Web TV)

The Israeli ambassador to the UN, Danny Danon, accuses the UN of fueling antisemitism and wins applause for the IDF during a speech at the General Assembly marking Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“The time for talk is over. The time for action is now. In recent years, we have heard many warnings from this podium about the rise in antisemitism, about dangerous lies, about how hatred begins with language,” Danon says. “Those warnings are right, but they ring hollow when the lies that fuel antisemitism are allowed to spread, including here in this building, in the UN.

Danon says that “when false narratives are repeated in this chamber, they do not stay here, they spread across the world with the rubber stamp of the UN. They harden into belief, they turn into hatred.”

He cites accusations of genocide against Israel as well as Tom Fletcher, the UN undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, issuing an unfounded accusation last year that 14,000 babies were going to die immediately in Gaza.

“Hatred does not spread on its own, it is enabled, it is legitimized, it is given authority, especially over the last two years. This institution, the UN has failed that test,” he says.

Danon connects the Nazi genocide to Hamas’s hatred of Jews.

“Hamas comes with the same hatred and the same intent as the Nazis — to murder Jews,” he says. “But unlike 1941, today, there is a different reality. We crashed and stopped Hamas’s terror machine.”

Danon heralds the recovery yesterday of Ran Gvili’s body, the last remaining hostage in Gaza.

“We brought home every hostage. Every single one of them. We waited 843 days. Today, the pin finally comes off,” he says, removing the yellow hostage pin from his lapel and placing it in his pocket, to applause.

“We have shown that the Jewish people are no longer defenseless. Today, we have our own army — the soldiers of the IDF,” he says to applause. “They are the grandchildren of Holocaust survivors and of the founders of our nation, now standing proud to ensure Jewish survival.”

“Too many in this building have buckled under the pressure of biased media, false propaganda and antisemitic campaigns,” he adds. “Do not repeat that failure, do not surrender moral clarity for political gain, do not wait until words turn into blood. Never again demands action, not tomorrow, not in a year. Never again is now.”

‘Now we can really stop the clock,’ says sister of last hostage returned from Gaza

Israelis gather at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv before a clock-stopping ceremony following the return of the body of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, from Hamas captivity, January 27, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Shira Gvili, the sister of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili – the last hostage in Gaza, whose body was returned to Israel yesterday – expresses a bittersweet sense of relief as crowds gathered in Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square for a ceremony to stop the countdown clock that for 843 days and 12 hours marked the time hostages remained in Hamas captivity.

“On October 7, our clock stopped,” says Gvili. “Now we can really stop the clock.”

“Tomorrow, we are laying Rani to his eternal rest,” she says. “For the last 844 days, I felt every minute… the world kept moving, but I wanted it to stop with us.”

“Now, I can say that Rani is here with us – Rani is home,” she tells the crowd to the sound of applause.

Gvili goes on to thank those in attendance and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, which she says “embraced us in a warm hug.”

Former hostage Segev Kalfon also addresses the crowd, saying that the first time he saw the countdown clock was from images shown to him while he was still in Hamas captivity.

“It was a clock that measured the hostages’ time not only in days, but also in minutes and seconds,” he says. “That’s exactly how we felt – every minute was an eternity, every second could have been our last.”

Kalfon adds that images of supporters in Hostages Square gave him and the other hostages hope while in captivity.

“The stopping of this clock is a significant moment, but it’s not the end – it symbolizes the end of one stage,” he emphasizes, saying that now the grieving families of slain hostages must embark on their mourning process.

Iranian president says US threats ‘will achieve nothing other than instability’

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian speaks during a ceremony commemorating the death anniversary of IRGC commander Gen. Qassem Soleimani, in Tehran, January 1, 2026. (AP/Vahid Salemi)

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian tells Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in a phone call that Tehran always welcomes any process, within the framework of international law, that prevents war, Iranian media reports.

Pezeshkian also tells Prince Mohammed that US threats against the Islamic Republic will only result in instability.

“The threats and psychological operations of the Americans are aimed at disrupting the security of the region and will achieve nothing other than instability for them,” Pezeshkian tells the Saudi crown prince, according to his office, after a US aircraft carrier reached the region.

Pezeshkian tells Prince Mohammed that the “unity and cohesion” of Islamic countries can guarantee “lasting security, stability and peace in the region.”

UN chief honors Holocaust victims at General Assembly remembrance

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres speaks during a news conference at the COP30 UN Climate Summit, November 20, 2025, in Belem, Brazil. (AP/Fernando Llano)

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres honors the victims of the Holocaust in a speech at the UN General Assembly in New York on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

“They were mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, grandparents and grandchildren, six million Jews murdered just because they were Jewish. We also grieve the Roma, Sinti, people with disabilities,” he says.

“Remembrance is more than honoring the past. It is a duty and a promise to defend dignity, to protect the vulnerable,” Guterres says. “The Holocaust, after all, is not only history, it is a warning, a warning that hatred, once unleashed, can consume everything.”

“Today, that warning feels more urgent than ever. Antisemitism around the world is raging, Jewish communities live in fear, synagogues attacked, families shattered, violent antisemitic hatred racing across cyberspace. We are haunted by the horrific terror attack of October 7, which I once again categorically condemn,” he says.

Guterres repeatedly condemns antisemitism, but takes a universalist message from the Nazi genocide. He does not mention Israel.

“When those with power fail to act, evil goes unpunished… When the past is distorted, denied and weaponized, hatred and prejudice fester. When words become weapons, lies, conspiracies, the casual joke and the coded slur can grow until the unthinkable becomes policy and violence,” he says.

“I’ve always understood the clear link between the horrors of the Holocaust and the spirit of multilateralism, justice and rights that founded our organization,” he says. “Let us honor the memory of the victims, of the Holocaust, by recommitting to justice, dignity, compassion.”

UN experts denounce Switzerland for sentencing students over Gaza protests

UN human rights experts have protested to Bern after a group of students were sentenced for trespassing after taking part in pro-Palestinian protests at a Swiss-funded university, they say in a statement.

Around 70 students at the Swiss university ETH Zurich took part in peaceful sit-in in May 2024 as part of student demonstrations in several cities during the Gaza war before being dispersed by police.

Students who took part in the protests were opposing the Swiss facility’s partnerships with Israeli universities, the UN experts say.

“Peaceful student activism, on and off campus, is part of students’ rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, and must not be criminalized,” the UN experts say, adding that they had written to the Swiss government and the university to raise the issue.

A spokesperson for the Swiss Federal Ministry of Justice and Police does not immediately respond to a request for comment. An ETH Zurich spokesperson does not immediately respond.

Five students have so far been sentenced for trespassing, resulting in suspended fines of up to 2700 CHF ($3,516.08), legal fees of over 2,000 CHF ($2,604.85) and a conviction on their criminal records which are frequently sought by prospective employers, the UN experts say.

Ten others who appealed the charges await sentencing and two others were acquitted, they say.

Academics urge High Court to sideline Israel Police chief from Sde Teiman leak probe

National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir (right) and police chief Danny Levy attend a ceremony at the Israel Police headquarters in Jerusalem, November 30, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

A coalition of academics takes legal action against police chief Danny Levy and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, urging the High Court to bar them from involvement in the Sde Teiman leak probe.

The probe — which concerns the illicit leaking of a video purporting to show reservists sexually assaulting a Gazan inmate at the Sde Teiman military base — has reportedly been held up by Levy for more than a month now, in what the petition filed this morning dubs “improper interference.”

The petitioning group, Academia for Democracy, accuses Levy of bowing to pressure from Ben Gvir to find dirt on Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, whom the government is seeking to oust, that would implicate her in the leak and its subsequent cover-up.

The group further requests that judges issue a temporary injunction preventing both him and Ben Gvir from interfering in the investigation.

Hebrew outlets reported that Levy received the findings of the Sde Teiman probe from detectives in the force’s investigations and intelligence division in mid-December. But rather than transferring the findings to the State Attorney’s Office so charges could be filed, Levy allegedly stopped short.

The petition claims Levy forbade the head of the police’s investigations and intelligence division, Deputy Commissioner Boaz Blatt, from updating the State Attorney’s Office on the probe’s progress. He also ordered law enforcement to carry out “supplementary” investigative actions, despite the investigative team insisting they were unnecessary, the court filing alleges.

“This unprecedented interference in the management of a sensitive investigation was done without authority and harms the rule of law. It is clearly motivated by external considerations, with a real concern of improper political influence on the investigation,” petitioners write.

This hold-up is reportedly due to pressure from Ben Gvir, who seeks to place blame on Baharav-Miara, after her office oversaw an earlier, fallacious internal probe which failed to implicate the leak’s source: former military attorney general Yifat Tomer-Yerushalmi.

Baharav-Miara recused herself from overseeing the probe at the behest of the High Court over a potential conflict of interest. However, no evidence has been found linking her to the leak or subsequent cover-up. The grounds for her recusal, much sought after by right-wing politicians, would likely be voided if prosecutors were to file indictments without charging her.

In a statement to Channel 12 earlier this month, police flatly denied that Levy was withholding the results of the investigation, calling the accusation baseless.

IDF publishes new footage from Gaza cemetery operation to retrieve Ran Gvili

IDF troops are seen in Gaza City for a ceremony honoring slain hostage Master Sgt. Ran Gvili after his body was recovered in Gaza City, on January 26, 2026. (Israel Defense Forces)

The IDF publishes new footage showing troops and forensic experts operating at a cemetery in eastern Gaza City, where the body of slain policeman Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, the final hostage in the Strip, was located yesterday.

Over the weekend, the IDF launched a major search operation at the cemetery, involving reservists of the Alexandroni Brigade and forensic experts, including more than 20 dental experts.

Hundreds of bodies were exhumed, and some 250 were tested by the forensic experts until Gvili’s remains were identified.

IDF troops operate at a cemetery in Gaza City during a search for the body of Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, in a handout video issued on January 27, 2026. (Israel Defense Forces)

Netanyahu to hold press conference this evening alongside hostage point man

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the Knesset plenum in Jerusalem, January 19, 2026. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and hostage point man Gal Hirsch will hold a press conference this evening, Netanyahu’s office announces.

Yesterday the body of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, was brought back from Gaza.

After 843 days and 12 hours, Israel stops counting: Hostages Square clock shut off in Tel Aviv

The clock in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv stops counting on January 27, 2026, after the return of final hostage Ran Gvili. (Stav Levaton/Times of Israel)

Crowds gather at Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square as the Hostages and Missing Families Forum holds a ceremony to stop the countdown clock that has marked every second Israeli hostages remained in Hamas captivity since the terror group’s October 7, 2023, onslaught.

At 5:35 p.m., the clock — which has been counting the 843 days and 12 hours since 251 people were abducted into Gaza — is shut off in a symbolic moment of closure, following yesterday’s return of the last hostage held in the Strip, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili.

Speakers at the event include Gvili’s sister, Shira, as well as former hostage Segev Kalfon and relatives of other hostages and victims of the war.

Russian forces begin pulling out of bases in northeast Syria

People walk inside part of a Russian military base near Qamishli International Airport in northeastern Syria, Jan. 27, 2026, as Russian forces have begun withdrawing. (AP/Baderkhan Ahmad)

Russian forces have begun pulling out of positions in northeast Syria in an area still controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces after the group lost most of its territory in an offensive by government forces.

Associated Press journalists visited one base next to the Qamishli airport today and found it guarded by SDF fighters who said the Russians had begun moving their equipment out in recent days.

Inside what had been living quarters for the soldiers was largely empty, with scattered items left behind, including workout equipment, protein powder and some clothing.

Ahmed Ali, an SDF fighter deployed at the facility, says the Russian forces began evacuating their positions around the airport five or six days ago, withdrawing their equipment via a cargo plane.

“We don’t know if its destination was Russia or the Hmeimim airbase,” he says, referring to the main Russian base on Syria’s coast. “They still have a presence in Qamishli and have been evacuating bit by bit.”

There has been no official statement from Russia about the withdrawal of its forces from Qamishli.

Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa is expected to visit Moscow tomorrow and meet with Putin.

WATCH: Hostages Square clock-stopping ceremony

The clock in Hostages Square in Tel Aviv stops counting on January 27, 2026, after the return of final hostage Ran Gvili. (Stav Levaton/Times of Israel)

A ceremony is being held in Hostages Square, Tel Aviv, at which the clock counting the days, minutes, and seconds that hostages were held captive by Hamas is being stopped.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum announced the ceremony after the IDF yesterday found and returned the body of the last hostages, Ran Gvili.

The clock is stopped at 843 days, 12 hours, 5 minutes and 59 seconds.

Syria must avoid ‘security vacuum’ that could aid ISIS, warns European, US statement

France, in a joint statement with the US and European allies, calls on Syria’s government and Kurdish forces to “avoid any security vacuum” that could benefit the Islamic State group.

“We reiterate the need to maintain and focus collective efforts on the fight against ISIS,” says the statement issued by Britain, France, Germany and the United States after a meeting of representatives from the countries’ foreign ministries in Paris.

“We call upon all parties to avoid any security vacuum in and around ISIS detention centers,” it adds.

Father of former Israeli hostage to join faculty at Columbia University

Freed hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen (right) with his father Jonathan aboard an IDF helicopter en route to the hospital soon after his release from 498 days in Hamas captivity in Gaza, February 15, 2025. (IDF)

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of former Israeli hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, will join the faculty at Columbia University, the school announces.

Terrorists abducted Sagui Dekel-Chen from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7, 2023. He was released by Hamas in February 2025 after 498 days in captivity.

His father was a prominent campaigner for his release.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, an academic at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, will take a position at Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs, the school announces.

He will teach three courses — on Jewish history in Eastern Europe, on Russia’s engagement with the Middle East, and on modern Israeli history.

Jewish members of the Columbia community applaud the announcement.

“Many of us marched to support him until his son Sagui was returned from Gaza after 498 days. We are delighted to now have him as a colleague,” Columbia Faculty and Staff Supporting Israel says in a statement.

After the start of the war in Gaza, Columbia became the epicenter of the anti-Israel campus protest movement in the US. The campus has been quiet more recently.

Iran warns of ‘destructive consequences’ if IRGC listed as terror group by EU

A member of Iran's Revolutionary Guard stands guard at Enqelab-e-Eslami (Islamic Revolution) square in downtown Tehran, Iran, June 24, 2025. (AP Photo/Vahid Salemi, File)

Iran has warned of “destructive consequences” if the country’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is listed as a terrorist organization by the EU, state media reports, after Italy’s foreign minister urged Brussels to go ahead with the designation.

Rome’s top diplomat Antonio Tajani said yesterday that he would propose the idea “in coordination with other partners” at a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels later this week.

Tehran summoned Italy’s ambassador to the Islamic Republic, Paolo Amadei, and condemned Tajani’s remarks as “irresponsible,” warning of “destructive consequences” if the bloc goes ahead with the move, the official IRNA news agency reports.

The ministry urges Rome to “reconsider its misguided stance on Iran,” IRNA says.

Turkey plans buffer zone inside Iran if regime falls – report

Iranians arrive to cross into Turkey at the Gurbulak Bazargan border post on the Iran-Turkey border, June 16, 2025. (AP/Kadir Cesur)

Turkey’s Foreign Ministry told the country’s parliament that it was preparing to create a buffer zone over the Iranian border if the regime in Tehran falls, according to the Turkiye daily.

Ankara fears a wave of refugees heading toward Iran, and diplomats briefed lawmakers that “we are making preparations for all eventualities, with our A, B, and C plans. We believe there should be a buffer zone to ensure that those who arrive in the event of a migration remain on the Iranian side.”

Turkey currently maintains a buffer zone in northern Syria.

“After the Syrian civil war, Turkey was forced to open its doors to millions of refugees, and integrating them into both society and the economy proved to be a very painful process,” says Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak of the Moshe Dayan Center. “Erdoğan was accused for years of failing to stop the waves of migration. It now appears that, in light of the lessons learned from Syria, border security will be kept tight this time.”

Amid Iran tensions, US announces multi-day aerial exercise in Middle East

A US AFCENT F-15 fighter jet is seen at the Nevatim Airbase, January 5, 2023. (Israel Defense Forces)

Amid the ongoing tensions with Iran, the United States Central Command announces that it is conducting an aerial exercise in the Middle East.

The Ninth Air Force — also known as Air Forces Central (AFCENT) — the air component in CENTCOM, will be conducting a “multi-day readiness exercise to demonstrate the ability to deploy, disperse, and sustain combat airpower across the US Central Command area of responsibility,” AFCENT says.

“This exercise is designed to enhance asset and personnel dispersal capability, strengthen regional partnerships and prepare for flexible response execution throughout CENTCOM. It will serve as a way for AFCENT to validate procedures for rapid movement of personnel and aircraft; dispersed operations at contingency locations; logistics sustainment with a minimal footprint; and integrated, multi-national command and control over a large area of operations,” a statement reads.

AFCENT says that during the drill, US forces will “deploy teams to multiple contingency locations and validate rapid set-up, launch and recovery procedures with small, efficient support packages,” adding that it will “conduct all activities with host-nation approval and in close coordination with civil and military aviation authorities, emphasizing safety, precision and respect for sovereignty.”

The drill comes a day after CENTCOM announced that the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and accompanying warships had arrived in the Middle East.

The arrival of the carrier strike group boosts the US’s available firepower and defensive capabilities in the region, giving US President Donald Trump the option to launch an attack on Iran against the backdrop of the regime’s killing of protesters.

U.S. Air Forces Central will be conducting a multi-day readiness exercise to demonstrate the ability to deploy, disperse, and sustain combat airpower across the U.S. Central Command area of responsibility.

Read more: https://t.co/F4rRENnVGD pic.twitter.com/ny80gdjuQU

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) January 27, 2026

Syria hopes to hold new integration talks with Kurdish forces today

Syrian army personnel prepare to tear-off a portrait of jailed Kurdish leader Abdullah Ocalan installed along a street in Tabqa, in Raqqa province, on the southwestern banks of the Euphrates on January 18, 2026. (Bakr ALkasem / AFP)

The Syrian government hopes to hold a new round of integration talks with Kurdish forces as early as today, a Syrian government official tells Reuters.

The talks will focus on practical ways to implement an agreement mediated by the United States this month, the official says. On Saturday, a four-day ceasefire between the Syrian government and Kurdish forces was extended by 15 days.

Netanyahu testimony in corruption trial tomorrow canceled

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrives at the Tel Aviv District Court to testify in his criminal trial, January 27, 2025. (Yariv Katz/POOL)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s scheduled testimony tomorrow in his criminal corruption trial has been canceled, the court says.

The court does not provide a reason for the cancellation.

Netanyahu regularly cuts short or cancels his court appearances due to diplomatic developments, overseas travel or important meetings.

The funeral of Ran Gvili, the last hostage in Gaza, whose remains were recovered yesterday, is scheduled for tomorrow.

PKK says Syrian army clashes with Kurds are ‘setback’ to Turkey peace proces

Women takes part in a rally next to a placard (L) reading 'Salut to the women who fight' during a rally in Ankara, on January 20, 2026, against the offensive of Syrian government forces against Kurdish forces. (Ozan KOSE / AFP)

Recent clashes between Syria’s military and Kurdish forces are a “setback” and a “plot” to derail the PKK peace process with Turkey, a spokesman for the Kurdish militant group tells AFP.

“The developments in Syria and the larger Middle East have a direct effect on the peace process in Turkey,” says Zagros Hiwa, spokesman for the political wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party.

The attacks “against the Kurds are a plot and conspiracy against the peace process and they indicate a setback in the process,” he says.

IDF: 2 Hezbollah operatives killed in south Lebanon airstrike last night

Two Hezbollah operatives attempting to restore a subterranean facility belonging to the terror group in southern Lebanon were killed in an Israeli airstrike last night, the military says.

The strike took place in the Nabatieh area.

The IDF says the efforts by the operatives to restore the underground site were a violation of the ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon and posed a threat to Israel.

The military issues footage of the strike.

צה״ל חיסל מחבלים מארגון הטרור חיזבאללה שפעלו לשיקום אתר תת-קרקעי בדרום לבנון

צה״ל תקף וחיסל אתמול, מחבלים מארגון הטרור חיזבאללה בעת שפעלו באתר תת-קרקעי של ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה במרחב נבטיה שבדרום לבנון.

פעילות מחבלי ארגון הטרור חיזבאללה לשיקום האתר מהווה הפרה של ההבנות בין ישראל… pic.twitter.com/5lgCTAbGav

— צבא ההגנה לישראל (@idfonline) January 27, 2026

Religious Zionism MK says party will push for elections if ultra-Orthodox don’t vote for budget

Religious Zionism MK Moshe Solomon chairs a meeting of the Knesset Education, Culture and Sports Committee, February 15, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Religious Zionism MK Moshe Solomon says that unless the ultra-Orthodox parties support the 2026 state budget in its first reading tomorrow, his party will take steps to bring the country to elections.

“Tomorrow we will find out if the crisis is behind us. On the day when we cannot continuously conduct the discussions and votes on the state budget, we will be forced to disperse the Knesset,” he tells the Israel National News site.

Solomon is from Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s party.

Israeli, three tourists questioned after entering Jericho

Police and army forces speak with four Jewish travelers after they entered Jericho in the West Bank on January 27, 2026. (Israel Police)

Police say they retrieved an Israeli citizen and three foreign nationals from the West Bank city of Jericho today and have taken them for questioning.

The four are Jewish tourists who had been visiting the city with a Palestinian tour guide, according to the Civil Administration, which manages civilian affairs in the West Bank.

Like in previous cases, the Civil Administration — a branch of the Defense Ministry’s Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) — contacted the Palestinian Authority’s security services to locate and transfer the civilians to Israeli forces.

“Upon receiving the report, officers from the Jericho District Coordination and Liaison Office acted to provide immediate protection to the Jews — three of whom hold foreign citizenship — and simultaneously to transfer them to the security forces through the coordination channels,” the Civil Administration says.

Officers took the four in for questioning at a nearby police station about the circumstances of their entry into the PA administered city.

Police stress that it is illegal for Israeli citizens to enter PA-controlled territory in the West Bank, adding that it “constitutes a real danger to one’s life.”

Alex Vindman, who testified against Trump during his first impeachment, enters Florida Senate race

National Security Council aide Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman is sworn in to testify before the House Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, November 19, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik)

Alex Vindman, who became a key player along with his twin brother in US President Donald Trump’s first impeachment, announced on Tuesday that he is running for the US Senate as a Democrat in Florida.

Vindman, an Army veteran, was serving on the National Security Council in 2019 when the Republican president pressured Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Joe Biden, then a Democratic candidate. He and his brother, Eugene, a lawyer on the National Security Council, reported their concerns and sparked investigations.

Eugene Vindman now serves as a congressman from Virginia. If Alex Vindman clinches the Democratic nomination, he’ll challenge Republican Sen. Ashley Moody, a former state attorney general who was appointed to fill the seat vacated by Marco Rubio as he became secretary of state.

The winner of November’s special election will finish the last two years of Rubio’s term.

Vindman describes Trump as a “wannabe tyrant” and federal immigration agents as “thug militias” in his announcement video, which features the recent killing of two US citizens during the deportation campaign in Minnesota.

Vindman was forced out of the National Security Council and later retired from the Army after testifying against Trump during impeachment hearings. He said “this president unleashed a reign of terror and retribution, not just against me and my family but against all of us.”

He urges voters to “stand with me now to put a check on Donald Trump and the corrupt politicians who think your tax dollars are their personal piggybank.”

I’m Alex Vindman and I’m running for the U.S. Senate. Chaos, corruption and sky-rocketing costs are crushing ordinary people, while the billionaires and career politicians profit.

I stepped up when my country needed a soldier, I reported corruption at the highest levels of… pic.twitter.com/AJhk13B6ZA

— Alexander S. Vindman 🇺🇸 (@AVindman) January 27, 2026

Vindman becomes the most prominent Democrat in the Florida Senate contest as the party tries to reclaim the Senate majority in this fall’s midterm elections.

Their task in Florida will not be easy. The onetime swing state, which is Trump’s legal residence, has swung decidedly red in recent years. A Democrat has not won a Senate seat there since 2012.

Zelensky marks Holocaust Remembrance Day at Babyn Yar

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky (left) speaks at the Babyn Yar ravine near Kyiv, the site of a Nazi massacre during the Holocaust, to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day on January 27, 2026. (Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine)

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visits the Babyn Yar ravine outside of Kyiv to mark International Holocaust Remembrance Day, where Nazis and their collaborators murdered more than 33,000 Jews in a two-day rampage.

“In this place, tens of thousands of Jews were murdered, as part of the Holocaust of European Jewry in which six million Jews were slaughtered,” says Zelensky. “The world has a duty to remember the promise of ‘Never Again’ and to uphold it. These are not empty words — when antisemitism is spreading across the world, we must ensure that this promise is truly kept. We must act against antisemitism.”

He is joined by Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha, head of President’s Office Kyrylo Budanov, and 30 ambassadors from Western countries.

Ukraine’s leading rabbis attend, including Rabbi Meir Stambler, who serves as chairman of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Ukraine, and Rabbi Moshe Azman of Kyiv’s Brodsky Synagogue.

Baby dies after being injured at Bnei Brak daycare

A baby has died after being critically injured at a daycare in Bnei Brak, police say.

The infant, around six months old, was found in critical condition and taken to a nearby hospital. Medical staff pronounced him dead upon arrival.

Officers arrested the daycare worker present at the scene for questioning, police add.

The detained employee told paramedics that the infant lost consciousness during a game at the daycare, Channel 12 News reports.

The incident comes a week after two babies died and dozens more were hurt at an ultra-Orthodox Jerusalem daycare, shedding a spotlight on the many unregulated early childhood care centers across the country.

Despite modern social reforms, Tunisia’s textbooks still full of antisemitic rhetoric — study

High school students shout slogans against Israel during a demonstration in front of the French embassy, in Tunis, on October 2, 2025. (Photo by FETHI BELAID / AFP)

A new study of Tunisia’s national school curriculum reveals a sharp divide between modern social reforms and persistent antisemitic rhetoric, according to a new report by The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se).

The study examined primary and secondary school textbooks across multiple subjects, measuring them against UNESCO-based standards for peace and tolerance in education.

IMPACT-se analyzed 80 textbooks across grades 1-13, finding that while Tunisia successfully promotes gender equality and intercultural tolerance, those values are “selectively applied.”

The report highlights troubling tropes that depict Jews as greedy and conspiratorial. One Grade 11 textbook portrays a Jewish merchant as deceitful, claiming such traits are inherent to all Jews.

Hostility toward Israel remains a core theme, with curriculum framing Zionism as a colonialist project and referring to Israel as the “Zionist entity.” Researchers found instances where violence is glorified, including a Grade 13 history book that labels the 1972 Munich Olympic massacre a “fedayeen operation” rather than an act of terrorism.

Despite these findings, the curriculum earns praise for celebrating women’s empowerment and rejecting religious radicalism.

“Today’s Tunisian curriculum champions modern, enlightened values,” says IMPACT-se CEO Marcus Sheff. “It loudly celebrates gender equality, condemns racism, and encourages civic duty, tolerance, and peaceful dialogue. These are strong signals of a society moving forward.”

“However, these values cannot be selectively applied,” he continues. “It is entirely unacceptable that antisemitic imagery and rhetoric remain across subjects, and that violence against Israel is at times justified and even glorified. If Tunisia sees itself as an example of progress in the region, then this underbelly of discrimination must be addressed.”

Previous investigations by IMPACT-se have found positive trends in countries like France, Greece, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Azerbaijan. More worrying trends have been identified in school curricula in European countries like Ireland and Poland.

Knesset legal adviser says Haredi draft law should only be passed as temporary measure, citing problems

Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee legal adviser Miri Frenkel Shor (right) and chairman Boaz Bismuth during a discussion on ultra-Orthodox conscription, September 8, 2025. (Dani Shem-Tov/ Office of the Knesset Spokesperson)

The government’s proposed law regulating ultra-Orthodox enlistment “is not ready to be enacted as a permanent arrangement at this time” and should be passed “as a temporary provision for a maximum period of five years,” Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee legal adviser Miri Frenkel Shor declares in a legal opinion sent to members of the parliamentary panel ahead of today’s discussion of the controversial bill.

Frenkel Shor argues that the current draft of the legislation “raises a difficulty because it allows the arrangement to continue to be extended even when the recruitment targets have not been continuously met for a period of time.” Instead, it should be amended so that if recruitment goals are not met for three consecutive years, “the provisions of the law will expire and the provisions of the [current] Security Service Law will apply” instead.

The legal adviser made a similar statement to the committee last September, telling lawmakers that she recommended that they “enact the conscription law as a temporary measure and not as a permanent law: If the goals are not met, the law will expire.”

According to national broadcaster Kan, this issue has become a central matter of disagreement between Frenkel Shor and the Haredim.

A planned vote on the first reading of the 2026 state budget was canceled yesterday after the Haredi parties threatened not to vote in favor until disagreements over the IDF draft bill were resolved.

Frenkel Shor, who has expressed significant criticism of the legislation as currently written, has called for the addition of several amendments that are opposed by the Haredim, Maariv reported. Late-night discussions of the issues on Sunday had failed to bring about an agreement, leading to the delay on the budget vote.

Frenkel Shor has previously warned that the bill violates equality principles and fails to meet current security needs. She has also called for reexamining 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.

According to the Haredi press, one of the key sticking points is Frenkel Shor’s opposition to a clause in the bill allowing an advisory committee to lower recruitment targets should its members feel that insufficient Haredi-oriented tracks have been established in the IDF.

4 said killed in IDF strike near Gaza cemetery where hostage’s body was found

Mohammed Al Rifi, right, looks at the body of his brother Yusuf Al Rifi, who was reportedly killed by Israeli fire, according to health officials, being carried into a vehicle before his funeral at Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Jehad Alshrafi)

Palestinian media reports four people killed and three wounded in an Israeli strike on the Hamas-controlled side of the Gaza ceasefire line in Gaza City’s eastern Tuffah neighborhood.

The IDF does not immediately comment on the reports, but regularly says such strikes come in response to ceasefire violations.

According to the reports, the four were killed in the vicinity of Tuffah’s al-Batsh cemetery, where Israel yesterday located the body of the last hostage, Police Master Sgt. Ran Gvili. The cemetery itself lies on the Israeli-controlled side of Tuffah, close to the ceasefire line.

The four people killed are identified as Mahmoud Lulu, Abdul Qader Abu Khader, Abdul Karim Ghabayen and Yusuf al-Rifi. Rifi’s age is reported in some outlets as 17, while the others’ ages are not immediately reported.

Amid the initial reports, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry said in a noon report that hospitals in the Strip had received nine people wounded and the bodies of two people killed by the IDF over the past 24 hours.

The report did not identify the dead, say where the people were killed or wounded, or specify the severity of the wounds.

Casualty reports out of Gaza do not differentiate between civilians and terror operatives.

The ministry also said 12-day-old baby boy Haitham Abu Quss died of cold exposure in Gaza City’s Rantisi children’s hospital. According to the ministry, he is the eleventh child to die of cold exposure this winter.

Iran’s currency drops to record low against dollar

Iranian and US banknotes are on display at a currency exchange shop in downtown Tehran, Iran, April 4, 2015. (Vahid Salemi/AP)

Iran’s currency drops to a record low of 1,500,000 rials to the US dollar today, according to several Iranian currency tracking websites, weeks after protests sparked by the rial’s dwindling value rocked the country.

School materials enter Gaza after being blocked for two years, UN agency says

Palestinian children, many of whom are part of displaced families, sit on the floor as they attend class, at the UNRWA Deir al-Balah Joint School, west of Deir al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip on December 6, 2025. (Photo by BASHAR TALEB / AFP)

The UN children’s agency says it has for the first time in two and a half years been able to deliver school kits with learning materials into Gaza after they were previously blocked by Israeli authorities during the war with Hamas.

Thousands of kits, including pencils, exercise books and wooden cubes to play with, have now entered the enclave, UNICEF said.

“We have now, in the last days, got in thousands of recreational kits, hundreds of school-in-a-carton kits. We’re looking at getting 2,500 more school kits in, in the next week, because they’ve been approved,” UNICEF spokesperson James Elder says.

COGAT, the arm of the Israeli military that oversees aid flows into the Gaza Strip, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

UNICEF is scaling up its education to support half of children of school age – around 336,000 – with learning support. Teaching will mainly happen in tents, Elder said, due to widespread devastation of school buildings in the enclave during the war which was triggered by Hamas’s assault on Israel on October 2023.

At least 97% of schools sustained some level of damage, according to the most recent satellite assessment by the UN in July.

Israel has previously accused Hamas and other militant groups of systematically embedding in civilian areas and structures, including schools, and using civilians as human shields.

Levin challenges Amit to let him appoint his candidates to Supreme Court if he’s sincere about ‘extending his hand’

Justice Minister Yariv Levin attends a plenum session at the assembly hall of the Knesset on January 14, 2026. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

Justice Minister Yariv Levin says that if Supreme Court President Isaac Amit is sincere about “extending his hand” to Levin to resolve the frozen relations between the two, he should allow the appointment of two conservative legal scholars to the Supreme Court, which the justice minister has been pursuing since the beginning of his term in office.

“Judge Amit, if your words are sincere, then it’s basically very simple. Respect the government and the Knesset, remove the ‘no’ you have placed on the fitting candidates Dr. Aviad Bakshi and Dr. Raphael Bitton,” says Levin, continuing his refusal to refer to Amit as Supreme Court president.

“The ball is in your court,” he adds.

A spokesperson for Levin declined to say whether Levin would in return recognize Amit as Supreme Court president should Bakshi and Bitton be appointed to the court.

Levin’s comments come in response to remarks by Amit today that he continues to “extend a hand” to the justice minister, despite Levin’s refusal to recognize him as Supreme Court president since his appointment in January last year.

Levin has refused to make appointments to the Supreme Court for the entire duration of his tenure, because he has lacked the votes on the Judicial Selection Committee to get Bakshi or Bitton appointed.

His boycott of the Supreme Court president actually precedes Amit’s appointment. He had refused to meet with acting Supreme Court president Uzi Vogelman since mid-2024 when Vogelman refused to abandon the seniority system for appointing the Supreme Court president.

Likud’s Edelstein sparks outcry in Knesset committee, accuses Haredi leaders of lying about support for draft law

MK Yuli Edelstein at a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, December 1, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)

The Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee descends into screaming after former panel chair Yuli Edelstein (Likud) accuses ultra-Orthodox lawmakers of lying about rabbinic support for the coalition’s law regulating Haredi enlistment.

“When they sat across from me and said that the rabbis agreed, they lied brazenly,” he declares, referring to the recent airing of audio recordings of senior ultra-Orthodox rabbis boasting that the controversial legislation will not lead to an increase in enlistment and will only serve to put off any real change.

Edelstein claims that the only Haredi representative to be honest with him was Motti Babchik, a senior adviser to UTJ chairman Yitzhak Goldknopf, who he said had “told me the truth, even if they told you that they agree to something they don’t agree to anything.”

In the recordings broadcast by Channel 12 news, Rabbi Moshe Hillel Hirsch, one of the senior leaders of the stream of ultra-Orthodox Jewry known as “Lithuanian,” says the law is meant to buy time rather than fundamentally influence enlistment patterns.

“In the end, the law will fall after a few years, but we’ve gained years,” he could be heard saying.

Meanwhile, Degel HaTorah spiritual leader Rabbi Dov Lando could also be heard speaking, and even more bluntly, about the legislation, in response to a visitor to his home appearing to express concern over the bill. “What they are saying is nonsense. It won’t happen. We will not go to the army,” Lando said. “No one will go to the army.”

Responding to Edelstein, Degel HaTorah MK Yaakov Asher accuses him of lying, a likely reference to Haredi accusations that the former panel chairman breached a compromise with the Haredi parties over a previous draft of the bill.

Asher also slams Yesh Atid MK Meirav Cohen, who, like Edelstein, accused Haredi representatives of “deception,” declaring that she “needs to learn; this falls somewhere between shallowness and stupidity.”

Jewish community members said detained in Iran on pretext of involvement in protests

An Iranian Jewish man prays at the Molla Agha Baba Synagogue in the city of Yazd, 420 miles south of capital Tehran, Iran, November 20, 2014. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)

Sources close to the Jewish community in Iran tell the Kan public broadcaster that several community members have been detained by Iranian authorities amid an ongoing crackdown following the protests that were brutally repressed.

The sources did not give details on the number or identities of those detained, but denied they had been involved in the demonstrations.

Between 8,000 to 10,000 Jews are believed to live in Iran — meaning the Islamic Republic has the second-largest Jewish population of any country in the Middle East, after Israel.

Hidden art collection from Theresienstadt ghetto to be displayed by London Holocaust library

One drawing of the almost 700 created inside the Nazi-run Theresienstadt ghetto by Peter Kien (Wiener Holocaust Library)

A rare cache of drawings secretly created inside the Nazi-run Theresienstadt ghetto by Jewish poet and artist Peter Kien has been deposited at the Wiener Holocaust Library in London, the institution says in a statement released on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.

The collection of 681 artworks offers an intimate visual record of life inside the ghetto, also known as Terezín, including portraits of fellow inmates and scenes from its clandestine cultural and musical life.

Kien, a gifted Czech artist, poet and playwright, was deported to Theresienstadt in 1941 and murdered at Auschwitz in October 1944 at the age of 25. Before his deportation, Kien entrusted a suitcase containing his drawings, manuscripts and letters to his partner, Helga Wolfenstein, who survived the ghetto. She hid the suitcase in an infectious diseases ward to avoid Nazi searches, and preserved it after liberation.

In 1970, the works were seized by the Communist government of Czechoslovakia. Wolfenstein spent decades seeking their return but died before succeeding. Her daughter, Judy King, who now lives in Florida, secured restitution earlier this month and donated the collection to the London archive.

The drawings will be conserved, digitized and made available to researchers worldwide, preserving rare evidence of artistic resilience and Jewish cultural life under Nazi persecution, the library says.

Witkoff hails Gvili’s return: ‘It’s a new day in the Middle East’

The family of the last remaining deceased hostage in Gaza, Ran Gvili, meets in Florida with US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and top White House Middle East advisers Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff, December 29, 2025, in a photo sent out by the Tikva Forum. (Courtesy)

US special envoy Steve Witkoff calls the return of the remains of the final hostage held in Gaza, Master Sgt. Ran Gvili, “a historic day.”

“A monumental, historic feat that few thought was possible,” writes Witkoff on X. “It’s thanks to the hard work of so many, but especially [US President Donald Trump], who works tirelessly for peace.”

He says that Gvili’s return “closes a painful chapter for many, and paves the way for a new future that can be defined by peace, not war, and prosperity, not destruction.”

“It’s a new day in the Middle East, and President Trump, myself, and the entire team are committed to sustained peace and prosperity for all in the region,” writes Witkoff.

Yesterday was a historic day.

The last remaining hostage in Gaza, Officer Ran Gvili, has been returned home to his family in Israel. He went out on October 7 to save lives, and yesterday he returned to rest in peace in Israel.

Now, ALL 20 living hostages and all 28 deceased…

— Special Envoy Steve Witkoff (@SEPeaceMissions) January 27, 2026

Outside court, Ben Gvir calls on Trump to intervene and end Netanyahu’s corruption trial

Activists demonstrate in support of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu outside the District Court in Tel Aviv, during his trial, January 20, 2026 (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

Addressing the press outside the courtroom in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ongoing corruption trial, National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir calls on US President Donald Trump to intervene and halt what he describes as a “farce” that interferes with the premier’s ability to do his job.

“I want to say one thing clearly about this farce called the Netanyahu trial: I think it’s crazy that the prime minister has to deal with meetings at night until 2 a.m., I sit there with him and then when I tell him let’s go home – he tells me no, I’m going to prepare for the trial,” Ben Gvir declares.

“It’s crazy, it’s not normal. I hope President Trump will put an end to this farce. President Trump should intervene and put an end to this abuse of the prime minister.”

Trump has repeatedly called on President Isaac Herzog to pardon Netanyahu, including during his October 2025 Knesset address and in a letter to Herzog the following month, drawing criticism for interfering in Israel’s internal legal proceedings.

Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last week, Herzog said he has “made clear numerous times” that Netanyahu’s pardon request “has to go through a certain procedure.”

“Right now, the request has to go through the procedure of collecting various opinions by the relevant agencies in the Ministry of Justice,” he told Fareed Zakaria. “I cannot violate that, because of course I have to operate according to the rules.”

“I respect President Trump tremendously,” says Herzog, “and of course we have our own legal system and I will operate within its [bounds].”

After 844 days, Hostage Forum to stop iconic countdown clock as last captive returns home

Visitors at Hostage Square in Tel Aviv stand in front of the clock counting the days since they were captured on October 12, 2025. Miriam Alster/FLASH90)

The Hostage Family Forum announces that it will stop the iconic countdown clock in Hostage Square in Tel Aviv after the remains of the last hostage, Ran Gvili, were returned to Israel yesterday.

“For the first time since 2014, Israel woke up this morning with no hostages held in Gaza. This is the moment to stop the clock,” the forum says in a statement.

“One of the square’s most powerful symbols was the stopwatch, counting the days, minutes, and seconds that our loved ones were held captive by Hamas, while time itself seemed to stand still for the families and for the entire nation after October 7,”  the statement says.

“Today, after 844 days – more than 20,250 hours, over 1,215,000 minutes, and more than 72,920,000 seconds – we can finally bring the counter to an end,” the Forum says.

The ceremony will be held at 5:30 p.m. with Gvili’s sister, Shira, captivity survivors and bereaved family members in attendance.

Hamas seeking role for its 10,000 police officers in Gaza ahead of disarmament talks; Israel regards them as terrorists

Hamas police forces deploy in Gaza City on October 11, 2025. (Ali Hassan/Flash90)

Hamas is seeking to incorporate its 10,000 police officers into a new US-backed Palestinian administration for Gaza, sources say, a demand likely to be opposed by Israel as the terror group debates whether to surrender its arms. Israel regards all elements of Hamas, including the police, as components of a terrorist organization.

Hamas retains control of just under half of Gaza following an October ceasefire deal brokered by US President Donald Trump. The agreement ties further Israeli troop withdrawals to Hamas giving up its weapons.

The 20-point plan to end the war, now in its second phase, calls for the governance of Gaza to be handed to the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, a Palestinian technocratic body with US oversight that is meant to exclude Hamas.

In a letter to staff on Sunday, seen by Reuters, Gaza’s Hamas-run government urged its more than 40,000 civil servants and security personnel to cooperate with the NCAG but assured them it was working to incorporate them into the new government.

That would include the roughly 10,000-strong Hamas-run police force, four sources familiar with the matter say, a demand that has not been previously reported. Many of them have been patrolling Gaza as Hamas reasserts its grip in areas under its control. The force is armed, as are other members of the Hamas internal security forces, and its members sometimes wear uniforms.

It was not immediately clear whether Israel, which has adamantly rejected any Hamas involvement in Gaza’s future, would agree to the civil and security workers’ inclusion in the NCAG.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Israel has in the past said that some Hamas police officers are also members of the terror group’s military wing.

Israel draws no distinction between the military wing of Hamas and the terror group’s police and internal security forces.

According to the IDF, members of Hamas’s police and internal security forces participated in the October 7, 2023 terror onslaught, alongside terrorists from the military wing. During the war, Israel has repeatedly targeted and killed top commanders and other members of Hamas’s internal security forces, as well as its political wing.

One killed, another wounded in shooting in northern town of Yarka

A man has been shot and killed and another person was injured in a car lot in Yarka, a northern Druze town, police say.

The victim, the owner of the car sale lot, and his employee were shot by several assailants riding a motorcycle, Ynet reports.

Both victims were taken to the hospital, where the owner succumbed to his wounds. The other man targeted in the shooting is in serious condition, police add.

Police say the shooting is related to a “conflict between criminals” and have launched an investigation. No suspects have yet been arrested.

Since the start of the year, 24 Arab citizens have been killed in crime-related incidents. Last year the community experienced its deadliest year on record, with 252 homicide victims.

Foiled Islamic State plot in Azerbaijan targeted Israeli embassy

The three Islamic State-backed individuals arrested in Azerbaijan on suspicion of targeting a foreign embassy were planning an attack on Israel’s mission in Baku, The Times of Israel has learned.

They planned to carry out the attack several months ago.

In a statement, the Azerbaijani State Security Service said the three men, whom it named, had conspired with members of ISIS-K, obtained weapons and planned to attack a foreign embassy before they were apprehended by security forces.

The Azerbaijani statement did not name the embassy targeted.

Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar visited Baku yesterday.

An attempted terrorist attack targeting the Israeli embassy in Azerbaijan was thwarted, and three local residents were arrested. Authorities did not disclose when the attack was planned. pic.twitter.com/26iZiYB7fO

— Israel War Room (@IsraelWarRoom) January 27, 2026

Defense Ministry inks $183 million deal with Elbit for aerial munitions

Israeli Air Force F-15 fighter jets fly over Israel en route to carry out strikes in Iran, in a handout photo published on June 25, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)

The Defense Ministry says it has signed a $183 million (NIS 570 million) multi-year order for aerial munitions from arms manufacturer Elbit.

The ministry says the deal “will expand Israel’s defense industrial base and strengthen the IDF’s capabilities for the immediate future and the challenging security decade ahead.”

Aerial munitions are missiles and other bombs used by Israeli Air Force aircraft for strikes and interceptions.

IDF says it hit Hezbollah operative in southern Lebanon

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

No further details are immediately given by the military.

Court partially lifts gag order on major security probe involving smuggling into Gaza

Illustrative: A Palestinian man sells cigarettes at a market in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip, more than a week after a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas took hold, on October 18, 2025. (Photo by Bashar TALEB / AFP)

The Ashkelon Magistrate’s Court partially lifts a gag order on a major security probe being conducted by the Israel Police involving the smuggling of goods from Israel into Gaza.

Police say they are investigating a smuggling ring that involves many participants.

The court bars the publication of any further details, including anything that could identify the suspects.

The gag order is in place until February 10.

KLM to resume Tel Aviv flights tomorrow

Ilustrative: KLM airplanes sit in Schiphol Airport near Amsterdam, Netherlands, on Jan. 18, 2018. (AP/Peter Dejong)

Dutch airline KLM says it will resume flight services to Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport starting Wednesday, Jan. 28, but with updated operations, citing “the geopolitical situation.”

KLM canceled flights to Tel Aviv last weekend amid concern of renewed conflict with Iran.

KLM says that in light of the “geopolitical situation in the region and a current assessment of the situation,” its flight schedule will be temporarily updated starting Wednesday.

Flights will depart from Amsterdam at 8:15 a.m. to arrive in Tel Aviv at 13:45. Flights from Tel Aviv will depart in the afternoon at 15:20 with a stopover in Paphos, Cyprus, for “operational purposes,” and land in Amsterdam at 20:55.

Herzog tells antisemitism confab that 81 years after Holocaust, antisemitism still thrives

President Isaac Herzog speaks at The International Conference on Combating Antisemitism in Jerusalem, January 27, 2026 (Zev Stub/Times of Israel)

Opening the second annual government-sponsored International Conference on Combating Antisemitism, President Isaac Herzog warns that 81 years after the end of the Holocaust, anti-Jewish hatred still thrives.

“The Holocaust was the single greatest catastrophe in the history of humanity and in the history of our people,” Herzog tells attendees at the conference on International Holocaust Memorial Day. “The same ancient poison… has always carried the same name — antisemitism. Let us call it what it is.”

Among the figures slated to speak are Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama; Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison; former Austrian Chancellor Sebastian Kurz; Argentina’s Minister of Justice Mariano Cúneo Libarona; Hungarian Minister for EU Affairs János Bóka; Brazilian senator and presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro; and US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee.

The conference is being held some 10 months after a previous one was boycotted by Jewish organizations for including European far-right-wing politicians, many of whose parties have themselves faced accusations of racism and antisemitism.

Australia cancels visa of Israeli influencer, accusing him of ‘spreading hatred’

Australia has canceled the visa of an Israeli influencer who campaigns against Islam, saying it will not accept visitors who come to spread hatred.

Sammy Yahood, who has commented on social media that Islam is a “disgusting ideology,” said yesterday his visa was canceled three hours before his flight departed from Israel.

Yahood flew to Abu Dhabi anyway, but was blocked from getting his connecting flight.

“This is a story about tyranny, censorship and control,” he posted on X.

Home Affairs Minister Tony Burke says in a statement sent to AFP that people who want to visit Australia should apply for the right visa and come for the right reasons.

“Spreading hatred is not a good reason to come,” he says.

Australia tightened its hate crime laws this month in response to a December 14 mass shooting on a Hanukkah celebration at Bondi Beach that killed 15 people.

BANNED 🇦🇺🤫 pic.twitter.com/xKReAkWENI

— Sammy Yahood (@sammyahood) January 26, 2026

Yahood’s visa was reportedly canceled under the same legislation that has been used in the past to reject people’s visas on hatred grounds.

The conservative Australian Jewish Association, which had invited the influencer to speak, says it “strongly condemned” the visa decision by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s government.

It criticized visa cancellations for other Jewish visitors, including far-right Knesset member Simcha Rothman who was blocked last year.

“This latest cancellation reinforces deep concerns within the Jewish community that, despite the horror of the Bondi massacre and the government’s belated apology, the Albanese Government hasn’t changed and was never genuine,” the association’s chief executive Robert Gregory says in a statement.

North Korea fires ballistic missiles toward Sea of Japan

This picture taken on January 25, 2026 and released by North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on January 26, 2026 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong Un (C) visiting the Mansudae Art Studio to inspect sculptures to be displayed at the Memorial Museum of Combat Feats at the Overseas Military Operations, in Pyongyang. (Photo by KCNA VIA KNS / AFP)

North Korea fired what appeared to be two ballistic missiles toward the Sea of Japan on Tuesday, Tokyo says.

South Korea’s Joint Chief of Staff also said it had detected a “projectile” being fired towards what Seoul calls the East Sea.

Japan’s coast guard, citing the defense ministry, says it had detected two ballistic missiles and that both were estimated to have already splashed down.

Japanese news agency Jiji Press reports the two missiles had landed outside of the country’s Exclusive Economic Zone, citing defense ministry sources.

The test is Pyongyang’s second of the month, following a salvo of missiles fired hours before South Korea’s leader headed to China for a summit.

It comes a day after a high-level visit to Seoul by the Pentagon’s number three official Elbridge Colby, who hailed South Korea as a “model ally.”

North Korea has stepped up missile testing significantly in recent years.

Analysts say this drive is aimed at improving precision strike capabilities, challenging the United States as well as South Korea, and testing weapons before potentially exporting them to Russia.

Azerbaijan arrests three men for planning embassy attack at behest of Islamic State offshoot

Police officers guard an area in front of the Iranian Embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan, Friday, Jan. 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Aziz Karimov)

Authorities in Azerbaijan say they have arrested three individuals planning an attack on a foreign embassy in the capital Baku at the instructions of Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K), the Afghan offshoot of Islamic State.

In a statement, the State Security Service said the three men, whom it named, had conspired with members of ISIS-K, obtained weapons and planned to attack a foreign embassy before they were apprehended by security forces.

The statement did not name the foreign embassy.

Islamic State-Khorasan, or ISIS-K, claimed responsibility for the 2024 Crocus City Hall attack in Moscow which left at least 145 people dead.

There have been a number of Islamic State-linked plots foiled in the majority-Muslim regions of Russia, where the group is listed as a banned terrorist organization, and in Central Asia.

Azerbaijan, a South Caucasus country of some 10 million people bordering Russia and Iran, is a secular country with a predominantly Muslim population, the majority of whom are Shiites.

In its statement, Azerbaijani authorities say the suspects had been arrested on charges of “preparation for terrorism” on the basis of religious hostility. They said the investigation was ongoing.

In a separate case, an Azerbaijani court sentenced a man affiliated with ISIS-K to 13 years in prison on terrorism charges last October after finding him guilty of plotting an attack on a synagogue in Baku with a Molotov cocktail in December 2024.

IDF soldier found dead at army base in south, Military Police launch probe

An Israeli soldier was found dead at an army base in southern Israel yesterday, the military says.

The IDF says the Military Police has launched an investigation into the circumstances of his death, and the findings will be forwarded to the Military Advocate General for review once it concludes.

The soldier’s family has been notified.

During the war, the military has seen a rise in suspected suicides among soldiers.

Israel to seek new security deal with the US, senior defense official says

IAF decals are placed on newly arrived F-35 fighter jets in a photo released March 16, 2025 (Israel Defense Force)

Israel is preparing for talks with the Trump administration on a new 10-year security deal, seeking to extend US military support even as Israeli leaders signal they are planning for a future with reduced American cash grants, the Financial Times reports.

Gil Pinchas, speaking to the FT before stepping down as chief financial adviser to Israel’s military and defense ministry, says Israel would seek to prioritize joint military and defense projects over cash handouts in talks that he expected to take place in the coming weeks.

“The partnership is more important than just the net financial issue in this context  … there are a lot of things that are equal to money,” Pinchas tells the FT. “The view of this needs to be wider.”

Pinchas says pure financial support – or “free money” – worth $3.3 billion a year, which Israel can use to purchase US weapons, was “one component of the MOU (that) could decrease gradually.”

In 2016, the U.S. and Israeli governments signed a memorandum of understanding for the 10 years through September 2028 that provides $38 billion in military aid, $33 billion in grants to buy military equipment and $5 billion for missile defense systems.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped to “taper off” Israeli dependence on US military aid in the next decade.

The US committed to providing billions in military assistance to Israel and Egypt each year when they signed their 1979 US-brokered peace treaty.

While US aid once made up a significant chunk of Israel’s military spending, the percentage it makes up of those funds has significantly declined in recent years as Israel’s economy has flourished.

Trump said briefed that hold of Iran regime at its weakest point since 1979

A Hezbollah supporter holds up a portrait of the Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, that reads in Arabic: "Oh leader" during a rally to show solidarity with Iran, in the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Jan. 26, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

US President Donald Trump has received multiple US intelligence briefings that signal that the hold of the regime in the Islamic Republic is weakening, the New York Times reports, citing several people familiar with the information.

The report says that the intelligence indicates that “the Iranian government’s hold on power is at its weakest point since the shah was overthrown in the 1979 revolution.”

The report comes as Trump mulls using force against Iran after the regime brutally suppressed protests, killing thousands.

The USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier and accompanying warships are moving toward the region alongside additional forces the US has sent.

While it is not clear what Trump will decide to do, hawkish advisors have been pushing for him to act.

“The goal is to end the regime,” Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham, a close ally of Trump, tell the Times. “They may stop killing them today, but if they’re in charge next month, they’ll kill them then.”

In a separate post on X, Graham says that: “History tells us the right decision is to stand by those who stand with America and sacrifice for our common cause. History also tells us that evil cannot be accommodated — it has to be defeated.”

I pray for President Trump and his team to make the right decisions to keep America safe at this dangerous time.

History tells us the right decision is to stand by those who stand with America and sacrifice for our common cause. History also tells us that evil cannot be…

— Lindsey Graham (@LindseyGrahamSC) January 26, 2026

Amid boycott, Supreme Court chief says he still extends a hand toward Justice Minister Levin

Supreme Court President Isaac Amit, November 3, 2025. (Moshe Shai/FLASH90)

Supreme Court President Isaac Amit says that he continues to extend a hand toward Justice Minister Yariv Levin, despite Levin’s continued boycott of the top judge.

“I am always extending a hand, with everything concerning the efficient funtioning of the legal system,” Amit tells the Kan public broadcaster. “But as I have already said, I have not seen a hand offered in return.”

“The ball is not in my court,” he says.

Asked about the refusal to recognize him as court president, Amit says: “We will continue on our way. I see the legal system like the health system. A legal system that offers services to the citizens, that provides an essential service.”

“That is my only consideration,” he says.

Levin’s boycott of Amit has been part of a wider judicial overhaul that has seen the government attempt to wrest power away from the courts in moves that have sparked large-scale public protests, with critics saying they are an attempt to break down the system of checks and balances and undermine democracy.

Levin stopped meeting with Amit’s predecessor Uzi  Vogelman in mid-2024, when Vogelman refused to accede to a demand from the justice minister to ditch the seniority system for appointing a president, whereby the Supreme Court justice with the most years on the court becomes the sole candidate for the position. The system is intended to prevent politicization of the selection process.

The justice minister then refused to call a vote in the Judicial Selection Committee for appointing a new president, since he did not have enough votes to appoint his preferred pick, Yosef Elron. This led the High Court of Justice to eventually order Levin to hold a vote in January this year after 16 months in which he had refused to do so.

Levin has boycotted Amit ever since, refuses to meet with him or address him as president, and has even failed to publish his appointment as president in the state gazette, as required by law.

EU agency says data gaps slow fight against Europe’s ‘persistent’ antisemitism

A banner reading 'Stop Jew-hunters' at a demonstration jointly held by Jewish and Christian organizations in Amsterdam, November 28, 2024. (Bart Schut)

The fight against antisemitism in the European Union is being set back by major gaps in the recording of incidents, the bloc’s rights watchdog says in a report.

Member states classify and count reported acts differently, which skews the statistics and “prevents any meaningful comparisons,” the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) says.

“The lack of reliable and comparable data continues to undermine efforts to counter antisemitism,” it adds.

The report calls for guidelines and training to enable police to identify antisemitic motives, as well as increased cooperation with civil society to reduce underreporting.

“Jews across Europe continue to face persistent antisemitism. Countering this requires concerted efforts underpinned by robust data that captures the full scale of antisemitism in Europe,” FRA director Sirpa Rautio says in a statement.

“Only then we can hold offenders to account, get justice for victims and foster a Europe where Jews can live their lives freely and openly,” Rautio adds.

Tuesday’s FRA report covers the 27 member states, as well as EU hopefuls Albania, North Macedonia and Serbia.

In 2022, 15 EU members, including France, Germany, Italy and Spain, signed a declaration aimed at developing a common methodology for quantifying and qualifying antisemitic incidents.

In updated toll, activists say over 6,100 killed and 41,800 arrested in Iran protest crackdown

Iran’s bloody crackdown on nationwide protests killed at least 6,126 people while many others still are feared dead, activists say.

The new figures come from the US-based Human Rights Activists News Agency, which has been accurate in multiple rounds of unrest in Iran. The group verifies each death with a network of activists on the ground in Iran.

It identifies the dead as including at least 5,777 protesters, 214 government-affiliated forces, 86 children and 49 civilians who weren’t demonstrating. The crackdown has seen over 41,800 arrests, it adds.

Iran’s government has put the death toll at a far lower 3,117, saying 2,427 were civilians and security forces, and labeled the rest “terrorists.” In the past, Iran’s theocracy has undercounted or not reported fatalities from unrest.

That death toll exceeds that of any other round of protest or unrest there in decades, and recalls the chaos surrounding Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

Trump: Iran wants to talk, situation ‘in flux’ after US sent ‘big armada’ to Mideast

US President Donald Trump steps off Air Force One upon arrival at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland on January 22, 2026. (Mandel Ngan/AFP)

US President Donald Trump says Iran is interested in a diplomatic off-ramp to tensions with the US over its crackdown on protesters.

Trump tells Axios in an interview that the situation with Iran is “in flux,” noting that he sent significant American military assets to the region, while adding that Tehran is interested in a deal with Washington.

“We have a big armada next to Iran. Bigger than Venezuela,” Trump says.

“They want to make a deal. I know so. They called on numerous occasions. They want to talk,” he adds.

In a subsequent briefing with reporters, a US official says, “With regard to Iran, we are open for business. If they want to contact us, and they know what the terms are, then we’re going to have the conversation.”

Earlier this month, US special envoy Steve Witkoff said any deal would have to include a ban on uranium enrichment in Iran, the removal of already-enriched uranium, a cap on Tehran’s stockpile of long-range missiles and a rollback of the Islamic Republic’s support for proxies in the region.

Tehran has expressed willingness to negotiate with the US but has rejected those terms outright.

Citing informed sources, Axios says Trump hasn’t made a decision on whether or not to strike Iran after pledging to do so if the regime killed protesters — which it did in the thousands.

Trump is slated to hold additional consultations with his national security team this week, with his military options likely to expand following Monday’s arrival of the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier to the waters of the Middle East.

Trump in his interview with Axios says he prevented an Iranian missile attack on Israel by giving Jerusalem the green-light to strike first during a 12-day war last June.

US official: Those in Gaza who hand over their weapons will be granted amnesty

A US official reiterates the Trump administration’s stance that those in Gaza who agree to give up their weapons will be granted amnesty

“We think disarmament comes along with some sort of amnesty, and candidly, we think we have a very good program to disarm. We’re in contact, or people representing us, are in contact with [Hamas], and we expect it to happen,” the US official says during a briefing with reporters.

The amnesty-for-weapons offer to Hamas fighters was laid out in a 20-point plan for ending the Gaza war unveiled by US President Donald Trump’s administration in September. It was verbally welcomed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose coalition partners criticized elements of the proposal that spoke of the creation of a pathway for a Palestinian state. For their part, Hamas officials have rejected the parts of the plan that called for the terror group to disarm.

The ceasefire deal Israel and Hamas actually signed only focused on the first phase of the agreement, which covered a hostage-prisoner swap, Israel’s initial pullback from the Strip and humanitarian aid provisions.

But the US official briefing reporters insisted that Hamas had agreed to a proposal that also included it giving up its weapons.

“They signed an agreement… if they decide to play games, then obviously President Trump will take other actions,” the US official says.

Hamas has vowed to hold onto its weapons, and officials familiar with the negotiations have told The Times of Israel that the mediators are pushing for a gradual handover of its arms — a framework Israel opposes.

The US official says Washington is working on a disarmament program with Israel along with the other Gaza ceasefire mediators — Egypt, Qatar and Turkey — and that announcements on the matter will hopefully be made in the coming weeks.

The US official reiterates his belief that potential donors will not be willing to contribute funds to the reconstruction of Gaza absent the Strip’s demilitarization.

“President Trump is fully aligned with Prime Minister Netanyahu with [the] statement that the rebuilding will not occur until there’s a demilitarization and a disarmament of Hamas,” the US official says.

Asked whether Israel is prepared to fully cooperate with the transition to the second phase of the Gaza plan announced earlier this month, the US official insists that Jerusalem is on board.

“Israel is looking to give space and to try and help support the people of Gaza who want to see it rebuilt,” the US official says, adding that this includes Israel withdrawing to the Gaza perimeter as Hamas disarms. “The ball is in the court of Hamas… They’re the ones standing in the way of Gaza being rebuilt and the people of Gaza living a better life.”

US official: Over 25 countries have joined Board of Peace, which will first focus on Gaza

US Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff speaks after the signing of a Board of Peace charter during the meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, January 22, 2026. (AP/Evan Vucci)

A US official says in a briefing with reporters that more than 25 countries have agreed to join the Board of Peace. Earlier Monday, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt claimed “20 additional countries” had agreed to join Trump’s board, seemingly suggesting that this new group was on top of the roughly 20 that had already agreed to join last week.

A Times of Israel tally of official announcements from countries confirming decisions to join the Board of Peace stands at 26, including the United States itself. The other countries that have agreed to join are Argentina, Albania, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Cambodia, Egypt, Hungary, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Morocco, Mongolia, Pakistan, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

Nearly a dozen countries have indicated or explicitly rejected invites to join the Board of Peace, including, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Slovenia, Sweden, United Kingdom and Ukraine

Others have yet to respond to the invitation, including China, Croatia, Cyprus, India, the European Union, Russia and Singapore. The US has said some countries need to receive parliamentary approval before joining.

Asked about the scope of the Board of Peace, the US official briefing reporters says the first focus of the panel will be Gaza.

While the UN Security Council gave the Board of Peace a two-year mandate to oversee the postwar management of Gaza, the Trump-led body’s charter makes no mention of the Strip and indicates a desire to usurp the UN in global conflict resolution.

“If more opportunities arise for [the Board of Peace] to add value and try and achieve outcomes that are different than [what has been] achieved before… then that’s something that President Trump will consider,” the US official says.

US official: Rafah crossing will reopen ‘with security coordination between US, Israel and Egypt’

Illustrative: Palestinians stranded in Egypt cross the Rafah Border Crossing to the Gaza Strip at Rafah, Egypt, as a temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect, November 27, 2023. (AP Photo/Amr Nabil)

A US official says the Rafah Border Crossing between Gaza and Egypt will reopen “with very good security coordination between the US, Israel, and Egypt.”

The US official briefing reporters on condition of anonymity doesn’t give an exact timeline for the reopening of the border gate, but a different US official told The Times of Israel on Sunday that Washington expects it to happen by the end of this week, consistent with announcements from the head of the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG) and the Board of Peace’s high representative for Gaza during the Board of Peace’s signing ceremony last week.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said Sunday that it would reopen Rafah once Israel completed an operation to retrieve the remains of the last remaining hostage in Gaza, which it succeeded in doing on Monday.

“We’re now building a local Palestinian police force that can start policing themselves. Ultimately, it’s going to be up to the government of Gaza and the people of Gaza to make sure that Gaza is secure,” the US official says on the briefing.

“The more that they can show that it’s secure and not going to pose a threat to its neighbors, the more that they can help themselves by having a lot of these materials come in,” he adds.

Asked about the potential for including a Palestinian representative on the Board of Peace, the US official says that the Palestinian Authority “has an observer status” with NCAG.

He doesn’t elaborate as to what that means but says the Trump administration has been engaging with the PA and “been having good conversations with them.”

“They’ve been supportive of these efforts. Let’s see where that progresses with them,” the US official adds.

The PA had hoped to play a more substantial role in the postwar management of Gaza, but this demand was nixed by the US and Israel, which have demanded that Ramallah implement longstanding reforms. The PA argues that it has begun instituting many of those reforms but that it is hamstrung by Israel’s continued withholding of several billion dollars of its funds. After taking a more combative approach during US President Donald Trump’s first term as president, which saw Ramallah cut ties with Washington, the PA has sought to come to terms with the limited role being offered to it this term, as its leverage is limited.

US official: Hamas was ‘very cooperative’ in locating body of final Israeli hostage

A US official says Hamas was “very cooperative” with efforts to locate the final Israeli hostage from Gaza.

“I will say Hamas was very cooperative in this. They fulfilled the obligation that they signed up for,” the US official says during a briefing with reporters on condition of anonymity, knocking “people with hysteria” who accused various parties of harming the effort.

The official touted the “fusion cell” created at the start of the October 2025 ceasefire that saw Israel, Egypt, Qatar, and Turkey work together to locate the remaining bodies of deceased hostages in Gaza.

“There are a lot of people who are in a war mindset for the last couple of years, but the reality is that the Middle East can only get better if people start working together,” the US official says, adding that Gvili’s return “is just an example of what can happen when Israel works with Egypt, Turkey and Qatar.”

The US official says US President Donald Trump’s top aides Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff spoke on the phone earlier Monday with Gvili’s parents

The official acknowledges that the administration wasn’t sure whether it was actually going to succeed in retrieving every last hostage and may have had to move forward with Trump’s Gaza plan, knowing that some captives may have been left behind.

“Thank God we [didn’t] have to make that decision because we achieved that objective,” the US official says.