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The Times of Israel liveblogged Monday’s events as they happened.
Trump ‘caught off guard’ by Israeli strikes in Syria and on Catholic church in Gaza
Smoke billows following Israeli strikes near the Syrian army and defense ministry headquarters in Damascus on July 16, 2025. (Rami al SAYED / AFP)
Asked whether Trump has expressed his frustration with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over recent Israeli strikes in Gaza, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says that the two leaders have a “good working relationship” and are in frequent contact.
However, Leavitt acknowledges to reporters outside the White House that Trump was “caught off guard” both by Israel’s recent bombings in Syria and by a deadly IDF strike on Gaza’s only Catholic church.
“In both accounts, the president quickly called the prime minister to rectify those situations,” the White House press secretary says.
Over the weekend, several US officials were anonymously quoted in the Axios news site expressing their frustration with Netanyahu, arguing that Israel’s strikes on Syrian government forces risk toppling the fledgling leadership that Washington is trying to support in order to stabilize the country.
Trump didn’t like seeing reports of Gazans killed trying to secure aid — White House
A Palestinian man said to have been injured near a food distribution center run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US- and Israel-backed organization, is carried into Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, July 19, 2025. (AP Photo/ Mariam Dagga)
US President Donald Trump has not liked seeing reports from recent days of Palestinians killed while trying to obtain humanitarian aid in Gaza, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt says.
“The president never likes to see that. He wants the killing to end, and he wants to negotiate a ceasefire in this region. He wants to see all of the hostages released from Gaza. That has been a top priority for this president,” Leavitt tells reporters outside the White House.
Dozens of Palestinians were reportedly killed while trying to retrieve aid from a UN convoy in northern Gaza. The IDF has admitted that it fired warning shots that struck some Palestinians who it said approached troops in a threatening manner during the incident. It claims Hamas authorities have inflated the death toll, but it has not provided an alternative figure and continues to ban foreign journalists from freely reporting in Gaza to verify statements made by Hamas authorities.
Leavitt says Trump wants aid to be distributed “in a peaceful manner where more lives are not being lost,” while also ensuring that the assistance cannot reach Hamas.
Trump “hated seeing the pictures of starvation of women and children who desperately need that aid,” she adds.
Leavitt highlights the administration’s decision to back the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which has been delivering aid in Gaza over the past two months under a new mechanism aimed at diverting Hamas theft.
But that system too has been plagued with problems, as it has forced Palestinians to walk long distances while crossing IDF lines in order to pick up aid. GHF has also not been vetting the thousands of aid recipients picking up boxes of food, due to the utterly chaotic situation at distribution sites, so there is no way to confirm that bad actors are not also taking advantage of the new system. However, Hamas has come out strongly against GHF, warning civilians not to cooperate with the organization.
Man seriously wounded in Haifa shooting
A man in his 20s has been badly injured in a shooting in central Haifa tonight, say police and paramedics.
Paramedics are taking the wounded man, currently unconscious, to the city’s Rambam Hospital. One other person was lightly injured in the shooting and arrived independently at a hospital to receive medical treatment.
Police say they have opened an investigation and are probing the circumstances and motive behind the incident. No suspects have yet been apprehended.
Police suspect the shooting is criminal, rather than terror-related, but stress that the investigation is still in its preliminary stages.
IDF says it killed Hezbollah operative in south Lebanon drone strike
A Hezbollah operative was killed in an Israeli drone strike in southern Lebanon’s at-Tiri earlier today, the IDF announces.
According to the military, the operative was involved in restoring Hezbollah capabilities in the Bint Jbeil area.
Since a ceasefire agreement came into effect in November, Israel has maintained a presence at five strategic points in Lebanon and frequently struck Hezbollah targets it said were violating the conditions of the ceasefire.
???????? | Hiizb@llah member Mohammad Fadi Shaito was martyred in the israeli drone strike that targeted his motorcycle in the town of Al-Tiri, southern Lebanon. pic.twitter.com/MosugVxKvn
— Muhammad Akbar Aziz (@akbaraziz607) July 21, 2025
Bnei Brak man arrested for assaulting 73-year-old hostage protester
Police arrested a 21-year-old resident of Bnei Brak suspected of attacking an elderly protester during a hostages demonstration earlier this evening.
The suspect will be interrogated at a police station in the Yarkon region, says law enforcement.
He is suspected of beating a 73-year-old protester earlier today, who had been demonstrating outside the Kirya military headquarters in central Tel Aviv.
The wounded protester told Haaretz earlier that he had been walking on the road between cars when he encountered his assailant, on a motorcycle.
“I stopped him. He told me to move. I said I wouldn’t move. He got off the scooter. I told him not to touch me. He started punching me — I didn’t understand what was happening,” he recounted to the Hebrew daily.
UK’s Lammy: Israeli aid system in Gaza a ‘grotesque spectacle’
Britain's Foreign Secretary David Lammy delivers a keynote speech on 'Diplomacy in the Digital Age,' during his official visit to Singapore on July 12, 2025. (Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)
Speaking to Parliament, UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy says the “new Israeli aid system is inhumane, it’s dangerous, and it deprives Gazans of human dignity.”
“It’s a grotesque spectacle, wreaking a terrible human cost,” he says, referring to the Gaza Humanitarian Fund, the aid group backed by the Trump administration and Israel.
Israel has criticized the UN’s aid mechanisms as vulnerable to exploitation by Hamas, saying the terror group seizes aid and uses it to sustain itself and consolidate its control over parts of the Strip. The GHF said today that it has repeatedly offered to work together with the UN, but the UN has refused, saying that to do so would violate humanitarian principles.
Lammy boasts that the current government has sanctioned violent settlers and Israeli ministers, suspended trade negotiations with Israel, and signed an major agreement with the Palestinian Authority.
The Foreign Secretary’s address comes after he spoke by phone with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, who says he told Lammy that “Hamas is solely responsible for the suffering of the population and the continuation of the war.”
In his Westminster speech, Lammy details attacks by Israeli forces that have killed Gazan civilians seeking aid, and adds that “Hamas is contributing to the chaos and taking advantage of it.”
“The Israeli government must answer: What possible military justification can there be for strikes that have killed desperate, starving children?” Lammy continues. “What immediate actions are they taking to stop this litany of horrors? What will they do to hold those responsible to account?”
“I firmly believe the Israeli government’s actions are doing untold damage to Israel’s standing in the world and undermining Israel’s long-term security,” says Lammy, arguing that Netanyahu should listen to “82 percent” of the Israeli public that wants a ceasefire.
“This offensive puts them in grave danger,” he says. “But still Netanyahu persists.”
He calls the Defense Minister Israel Katz’s plan to move Gaza’s civilians to Rafah “a cruel vision which must never come to pass.”
“The war in Gaza must end now,” says the top British diplomat. “There is no military solution. Negotiations will secure the hostages. Further bloodshed serves no purpose. Hamas and Israel must both commit to a ceasefire now.”
“And the next ceasefire must be the last ceasefire.”
Hamas, he says, can have “no role in the governance of Gaza nor use it as a launchpad for terrorism.”
Lammy also blasts the Netanyahu government’s “extremist ideology which wants to suffocate the two-state solution.” He rails against “shocking levels of settler violence, even settler terrorism.”
He says Israel should support the Palestinian Authority, and notes that London is joining Egypt to lead the humanitarian and reconstruction track at the upcoming Two-State Solution Conference at the UN later this month.
On Syria, Lammy says “the violence in Sweida must be investigated and those responsible held accountable.”
A stable Syria, he says, “matters to the UK’s national interest, for terrorism, for irregular migration, for regional stability.”
Sa’ar says he told Lammy that “the international community must take a firm stance against the pattern of massacring Syria’s minorities.”
Footage shows renewed protests in Gaza against Hamas, in support of ceasefire
Media outlets in Gaza published footage showing several dozen people, including children, protesting earlier today in the Khan Younis area against Hamas and in support of ending the war.
In the footage, protesters can be heard chanting “Hamas out.”
One demonstrator is seen holding a sign reading “Stop the war,” while another sign says “Stop exploiting the blood.”
The demonstration appears to be the first in Gaza against the terror group, since it violently suppressed a series of protests in March and in April.
خانيونس تنتفض " مواصي خانيونس "
.#اوقفوا_الحرب باي ثمن
.
الحقوا ما تبقى من غزة
.#انتهى_وقت_الصمت
.#بدنا_نعيش pic.twitter.com/WXzHQGpDMI— الناشط حمزة المصري (@hamza198708) July 21, 2025
Iran sends a rocket designed to carry satellites into a suborbital test flight
Illustrative: A handout picture provided by the Iranian Defense Ministry on December 6, 2024 shows Iran's two-stage Simorgh (Phoenix) satellite carrier being launched from a platform at the Imam Khomeini spaceport in city of Semnan. IRANIAN DEFENCE MINISTRY / AFP)
Iran tested one of its satellite-carrying rockets with a suborbital flight, state media reports, the first such test since a ceasefire was reached after a 12-day war waged by Israel against Iran in June, which also saw the United States strike nuclear-related facilities in the Islamic Republic.
The test was the latest for a program that the West says improves Tehran’s ballistic missiles.
A report by the official IRNA news agency says the Ghased satellite carrier test aimed at “assessing some emerging new technologies in the country’s space industry.” It said the test results will help improve the function of Iran’s satellites and space systems.
The report does not provide any further details on the test flight or from where the rocket was launched.
Iran from time to time Iran launches satellite carriers to send its satellites to the space. Last September, Iran launched a satellite into space with a rocket built by the country’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard.
The Ghased, a solid and fluid fuel rocket, was first inaugurated in 2020 by the Guard when it put a military satellite in the orbit.
The war in June killed nearly 1,100 Iranians, including senior military commanders and nuclear scientist. Retaliatory missile barrages by Iran killed 28 in Israel.
US appeals court orders new trial for man convicted in 1979 Etan Patz case
A photograph of Etan Patz hangs on an angel figurine, as part of a makeshift memorial in the SoHo neighborhood of New York, May 28, 2012. (AP Photo/ Mark Lennihan, File)
The man convicted in the 1979 killing of 6-year-old Etan Patz was awarded a new trial today, as a federal appeals court overturned the guilty verdict in one of the US’s most notorious missing child cases.
Pedro Hernandez has been serving 25 years-to-life in prison since his 2017 conviction. He was arrested in 2012 after a decades-long, haunting search for answers in Etan’s disappearance, which happened on the first day he was allowed to walk alone to his school bus stop in New York City.
The appeals court says the trial judge gave a “clearly wrong” and “manifestly prejudicial” response to a jury note during Hernandez’s 2017 trial — his second. His first trial ended in a jury deadlock in 2015.
The court ordered Hernandez’s release unless the 64-year-old gets a new trial within “a reasonable period.”
The Manhattan district attorney’s office, which prosecuted the case, said it was reviewing the decision. The trial predated current DA Alvin Bragg, a Democrat.
A message seeking comment was sent to Etan’s parents. They spent decades pursuing an arrest, and then a conviction, in their son’s case and pressing to improve the handling of missing-child cases nationwide.
Etan was among the first missing children pictured on milk cartons. His case contributed to an era of fear among American families, making anxious parents more protective of kids who were once allowed to roam and play unsupervised in their neighborhoods.
IDF soldier killed in explosion in southern Gaza
Staff Sgt. Amit Cohen (Israel Defense Forces)
An Israeli soldier was killed during fighting in southern Gaza’s Khan Younis earlier today, the IDF announces.
The slain soldier is named as Staff Sgt. Amit Cohen, 19, of the Golani Brigade’s 13th Battalion, from Holon.
According to a preliminary IDF investigation, Cohen was killed by a blast from Israeli military munitions that detonated inside a building in Khan Younis.
The explosion also seriously wounded an officer in the 13th Battalion, the IDF says. The military is further investigating the cause of the explosion.
New York anti-Israel activist charged with torching 11 police vehicles
Officials in New York charge an anti-Israel protester, Jakhi McCray, with setting 11 NYPD vehicles on fire last month.
McCray allegedly climbed a fence to access a parking lot for police vehicles on June 12, in the Bushwick neighborhood of Brooklyn.
Once inside the lot, he ignited 10 NYPD vehicles and a trailer, the US attorney’s office for the Eastern District of New York says.
The cost to replace the vehicles is around $800,000.
McCray, 21, is charged with arson and faces a maximum sentence of 20 years.
The NYPD identified McCray as a suspect last month. NYPD Chief of Detectives Joseph Kenny said at the time that McCray was “very active in the protest community, involving the Free Palestine movement.”
Kenny also said McCray damaged a statute at Columbia University during protests on the campus last year.
“Free Palestine” arsonist accused of torching 11 NYPD cars, Jakhi Lodgson-McCray, arrested after a month-long manhunt
Lodgson-McCray reportedly caused at least $800,000 in damages and already had multiple protest-related arrests during the Columbia University protest last… pic.twitter.com/xE7JEiwd5x
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) July 21, 2025
Anti-Israel activist groups, including at Columbia, rally behind McCray ahead of his initial court appearance this afternoon.
“The time has come to rise in solidarity for our comrade, Jackhi McCray,” says Columbia University Apartheid Divest, the campus alliance leading anti-Israel protests at the university.
US slams 25-nation call for Israel to end Gaza war, says onus on Hamas ‘savages’
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee arrives for a court hearing of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's criminal trial at the Tel Aviv District Court, July 16, 2025. (Flash90)
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee slams a joint statement issued by 25 Western nations calling on Israel to end the Gaza war.
“Disgusting! 25 nations put pressure on Israel instead of savages of Hamas!” Huckabee says in post on X.
“Gaza suffers for 1 reason: Hamas rejects EVERY proposal. Blaming Israel is irrational,” he adds.
Disgusting! 25 nations put pressure on @Israel instead of savages of Hamas! Gaza suffers for 1 reason: Hamas rejects EVERY proposal. Blaming Israel is irrational.
Israel rejects 25 nation statement calling for end to Gaza war https://t.co/1X4oqRVKqv via @timesofisrael
— Ambassador Mike Huckabee (@GovMikeHuckabee) July 21, 2025
Harvard seeks billions in funding restored at hearing in its standoff with Trump over antisemitism on campus
Students, faculty and members of the Harvard University community rally in Cambridge, Massachusetts, April 17, 2025. (AP)
Harvard University appears in federal court in a pivotal case in its battle with the Trump administration, as the storied institution argues that the government illegally cut $2.6 billion in federal funding.
US President Donald Trump’s administration has battered the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university with sanctions for months, as it presses a series of demands on the Ivy League school, which it decries as a hotbed of liberalism and antisemitism.
Harvard has resisted, and the lawsuit over the cuts to its research grants represents the primary challenge to the administration in a standoff that is being widely watched across higher education and beyond.
A lawyer for Harvard, Steven Lehotsky, says at the hearing that the case is about the government trying to control the “inner workings” of Harvard. The funding cuts, if not reversed, could lead to the loss of research, damaged careers, and the closing of labs, he says.
The case is before US District Judge Allison Burroughs, who has been presiding over lawsuits brought by Harvard against the administration’s efforts to keep it from hosting international students. In that case, she temporarily blocked the administration’s efforts.
At today’s hearing Harvard is asking her to reverse a series of funding freezes. Such a ruling, if it stands, would revive Harvard’s sprawling scientific and medical research operation and hundreds of projects that lost federal money.
A lawyer for the government, Michael Velchik, says the government has authority to cancel research grants when an institution is out of compliance with the president’s directives. He said episodes at Harvard violated Trump’s order combating antisemitism.
Hostage protester assaulted by motorcyclist in Tel Aviv
A 73-year-old protester was attacked by a motorcyclist this evening during a demonstration for the hostages, outside the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv.
The demonstrator had been blocking Begin Road alongside other protesters outside the military complex, as participants read aloud the names of the remaining Hamas-held hostages in Gaza.
According to Hebrew reports, the demonstrator was repeatedly punched by the assailant, a younger man wearing tzitzit, who drove off after the beating.
The wounded protester tells Haaretz that he had been walking with signs between the cars on the road when the assailant came up to him on his motorcycle.
“I stopped him, he told me to move, I said I wouldn’t move, he got off the scooter. I told him not to touch me. He started punching me — I didn’t understand what was happening,” he recounts to the Hebrew daily.
Police tell The Times of Israel that officers in the Yarkon region are investigating the incident and have not yet arrested any suspects.
נהג אופנוע תקף באגרופים מפגין בן 73 בבגין pic.twitter.com/ToHszsye7v
— לירי בורק שביט (@lirishavit) July 21, 2025
Huckabee says issue of visas for Christians ‘fully resolved’
US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee (C) shakes hands with Father Daoud Khoury of the Greek Orthodox Church during his visit to the Christian Palestinian village of Taybeh in the West Bank on July 19, 2025. (Jaafar Aashtityeh/ AFP)
After The Times of Israel reported that a solution had been found for the issue of visas for Christian groups, US Ambassador Mike Huckabee says that the subject “has been fully resolved.”
“I am delighted to report that the issue has been resolved to everyone’s satisfaction and the strong support that Israel enjoys from American evangelicals will continue,” writes US Ambassador Mike Huckabee on X.
“I’m convinced the Interior Minister was not fully aware of the change being imposed and I’m grateful he has personally intervened to completely restore the long-standing process,” he continues, adding that he had met with the Interior Ministry, and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had assisted.
“American Christians are some of Israel’s strongest supporters, and the resolution of this issue among friends is a welcome outcome,” says Huckabee.
The US ambassador had fired off a seething letter to Interior Minister Moshe Arbel last Wednesday, threatening to publicly announce that Israel no longer welcomes Christian groups to Israel if the visas issues were not resolved.
Hostage mother urges IDF to take care as it moves into Gaza areas where captives are thought to be
Ruhama Bohbot, mother of hostage Elkana Bohbot, speaks July 21, 2025, at a Shift 101 gathering in Mevaseret Zion. (Michal Sasson/ Shift 101)
Hostage mother Ruhama Bohbot, whose son Elkana Bohbot is held captive by Hamas in Gaza, speaks at a gathering of Shift 101, a mostly silent sit-in that gathers several times a week outside government institutions, this time in Mevasseret Zion outside Jerusalem.
“I’m a little tense. The IDF have begun operating in Gaza in the place where Elkana is being held, and I’m a little worried and suspicious like the other families,” says Bohbot. “I don’t have any idea why they started doing this now, now, when there’s supposed to be a deal.”
“I hope that the army will know what to do and how to do it,” she says. “And God forbid not touch the hostages. The government said it wouldn’t be the worst thing if some hostages were harmed, an unbelievably terrible thing to say.
She appears to be referring to comments earlier from National Missions and Settlements Minister Orit Strock who called for the IDF to expand its operations in Gaza to encompass the entire Strip, including areas where hostages are known to be held, even though doing so would likely endanger them further.
Bohbot continues, talking about her recent mission to Washington, DC, when she met with ambassadors, senators, and other officials, all of whom listened to her, cried with her, and felt her pain.
“And despite that, I come home to Israel and hear the rumors that the government that represents me, that is supposed to represent me, that is supposed to fight for me and Elkana and it’s not happening,” she says at the Shift 101 gathering, a mostly silent sit-in that gathers several times a week outside government institutions.
Lifelines keeping people alive in Gaza are collapsing, says UN
Palestinians use an animal-drawn cart for transportation, as dilapidated cars are piled up in a junkyard in the Mawasi area of Rafah, due to the scarcity of fuel in the Gaza Strip on July 20, 2025. (AFP)
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres is appalled by an accelerating breakdown of humanitarian conditions in Gaza, “where the last lifelines keeping people alive are collapsing,” his spokesperson says.
“He deplores the growing reports of children and adults suffering from malnutrition,” UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric says.
“Israel has the obligation to allow and facilitate by all the means at its disposal the humanitarian relief provided by the United Nations and by other humanitarian organizations.”
Death toll from south Syria violence tops 1,260, monitor says
Heavy smoke rises as a member of Bedouin and tribal forces runs during clashes with Druze fighters in Syria's southern city of Sweida on July 19, 2025. (OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
Sectarian violence in southern Syria killed more than 1,260 people before the implementation of a recent ceasefire, a war monitor says, offering an updated toll, as it continues to document deaths that took place prior to the truce.
The dead from the violence in Sweida province included 505 Druze fighters and 298 Druze civilians, 194 of whom were “summarily executed by defense and interior ministry personnel.”
They also included 408 government security personnel and 35 Sunni Bedouin, three of them civilians who were “summarily executed by Druze fighters.” Another 15 government troops were killed in Israeli strikes, the Observatory said.
Israel rejects 25-nation statement calling for end to Gaza war
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar addresses a joint press conference with his Austrian and German counterpart in Vienna, on July 10, 2025. (ZOE-SOPHIE ZIMMERMANN / AFP)
Israel rejects the joint statement signed by 25 Western nations calling for an “unconditional and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza and condemning Israel’s handling of the humanitarian situation in the territory, the Foreign Ministry writes on X.
The statement “is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas,” the ministry says, asserting that “all statements and all claims should be directed at the only party responsible for the lack of a deal for the release of hostages and a ceasefire: Hamas, which started this war and is prolonging it.”
The terror group has “stubbornly” refused the latest ceasefire proposal, which Israel agreed to, is “running a campaign to spread lies about Israel,” and “deliberately acting to increase friction and harm to civilians who come to receive humanitarian aid,” the ministry adds.
Israel rejects the joint statement published by a group of countries, as it is disconnected from reality and sends the wrong message to Hamas.
All statements and all claims should be directed at the only party responsible for the lack of a deal for the release of hostages and a…
— Israel Foreign Ministry (@IsraelMFA) July 21, 2025
“The statement fails to focus the pressure on Hamas … At these sensitive moments in the ongoing negotiations, it is better to avoid statements of this kind,” the ministry concludes.
The United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, France, and Italy are among the nations who signed the communique, while several European allies including Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia did not sign the document.
However, German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul says he spoke on the phone today with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and expressed his “greatest concern about the catastrophic humanitarian situation, especially in light of the expansion of the Israeli offensive in Gaza.”
Shas MK says party did not demand Likud remove Edelstein from Knesset committee
Shas MK Yinon Azoulay speaks during a Knesset Finance Committee meeting on February 23, 2023. (Yonatan Sindel/ Flash90)
Shas MK Yinon Azoulay says the party did not demand that Likud replace MK Yuli Edelstein as head of the powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee over his refusal to advance a bill enshrining sweeping military service exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox.
Speaking to the Knesset Channel, Azoulay is asked about Likud plans to fire Edelstein, who has been holding up a draft exemption bill by insisting on harsh sanctions against draft dodgers.
“We did not demand this, we did not receive this,” Azoulay says, suggesting the interviewer ask Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about why Edelstein was being replaced.
Source: Hamas negotiators have been unable to reach group’s Gaza leaders, slowing hostage talks
Men gesture as they ride ride together in the back of a tricycle cart along Salaheddin road in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on July 21, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
Hamas’s negotiators in Doha have been unable to reach the group’s leaders in Gaza since late last week, preventing talks for a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal from moving forward, a source familiar with the matter tells The Times of Israel.
Last week, Israel submitted updated maps showing its proposed redeployment of troops during the 60-day truce under discussion. The maps had mediators bullish about the chances for an agreement as they envisioned Israel coming down from previous demands to remain in control over larger swaths of Gaza territory, Arab diplomats told The Times of Israel at the time, adding that they expected Hamas to approve the Israeli maps.
But Hamas deliberations on the updated Israeli proposal have continued since Thursday with no response from the terror group, the source says, lamenting the daily loss of Palestinian lives in Gaza that have taken place in the interim.
The source adds that Israel’s decision to enter the central Gaza city of Deir al-Balah for the first time since the start of the war may further harm efforts to reach Hamas’s leaders in order to respond to developments in the Doha negotiations.
With frustration growing from mediators over perceived Hamas foot-dragging, the source indicates that the group will likely issue a statement in the coming hours declaring that it is conducting internal deliberations on the Israeli proposal in a positive manner.
An Arab diplomat separately tells The Times of Israel that despite the delay in Hamas’s response, mediators are still optimistic about the chances of reaching an agreement in the coming days, given the softened Israeli stance on its troop redeployment and Hamas’s willingness to forgo its demand for an upfront Israeli commitment for a permanent ceasefire.
Lawmakers approve plan to compensate businesses harmed by war with Iran
Israeli emergency services work at the site of an Iranian missile attack in Ramat Gan on June 19, 2025. (GIL COHEN-MAGEN / AFP)
Lawmakers vote 55-2 to approve, in its third and final reading, the government’s plan to compensate those affected financially by last month’s conflict with Iran, including grants for businesses whose income streams were reduced and workers who had been furloughed.
“We worked together here, coalition and opposition,” says Shas MK Yinon Azoulay. “Our prayer is that we will not need more compensation.”
The outline, whose aim is to create “as broad a safety net as possible for the working public,” was presented at a joint press conference last month by officials including Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, then-Knesset Finance Committee chairman Moshe Gafni, Business Sector Presidium chair Dubi Amitai, and Histadrut Labor Federation chief Arnon Bar-David.
According to the Finance Ministry, the outline is focused on maintaining economic “continuity,” with an emphasis on small and medium-sized businesses. Businesses with an annual turnover of NIS 12,000 ($3,450) to NIS 400 million ($114 million) that has decreased by more than 25 percent month over month will be compensated from the Property Tax Compensation Fund.
Businesses bringing in less than NIS 300,000 ($86,000) a year will be eligible for a fixed business continuity grant “depending on the level of damage to the business,” while businesses earning NIS 300,000 to NIS 400 million will be eligible for the reimbursement of 7%-22% of their expenses, “depending on the rate of damage to business turnover, as well as a refund of 75% of salary expenses in relation to the level of damage.”
Businesses with an annual turnover of NIS 300,000 to NIS 100 million ($28 million) will have compensation capped at NIS 600,000 ($172,000).
Employees placed on unpaid leave due to the cessation of economic activity during the war will receive payments from the National Insurance Institute and will not be forced to use any of their accrued vacation days.
Progress on the compensation law was temporarily halted last week when then Gafni quit his position as part of his ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party’s exit from the coalition. Gafni was quickly replaced by coalition whip Ofir Katz as lawmakers hurried to pass the legislation before the pending Knesset recess.
IDF says it detained a terror cell planning an attack during Bethlehem raid
The military says troops detained a “cell of terrorists that planned a terror attack” during an overnight operation in Bethlehem in the West Bank.
No further details are provided.
A total of 16 suspects were nabbed during overnight West Bank arrest raids, the army adds.
Romania to buy Israeli anti-aircraft systems for $2.3 billion
A SPYDER surface-to-air missile is fired in a test in an undated photograph. (Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd.)
Romania has signed a framework agreement to buy Israeli-made short-range and very short-range anti-aircraft systems for more than 2 billion euros ($2.3 billion), the Romanian defense ministry says.
Under pressure from US President Donald Trump, Romania and other European countries have been looking to increase their defense spending since Russia’s full-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine in 2022.
The European Union and NATO member state, which shares a 650-kilometer (400-mile) border with Ukraine, has had Russian drone fragments fall onto its territory repeatedly over the past two years as Moscow attacks Ukrainian port infrastructure.
The framework agreement with the Israeli company Rafael Advanced Defense Systems – maker of Israel’s Iron Dome defense system among several others – provides for the signing of three further contracts, through which six integrated anti-aircraft systems will be acquired.
The contracts will also cover training, ammunition and logistical support.
The framework agreement will run for seven years, with the first two very short-range systems to be delivered within three years of the signing of the first of the three further contracts, the ministry says.
‘AOC funds genocide in Gaza’: Anti-Israel activists say they vandalized Ocasio-Cortez’s New York office
Anti-Israel activists in New York say they vandalized the Bronx office of US Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of Israel’s leading critics in Congress.
The anti-Israel protest group Decolonize This Place posts photos showing red paint, reminiscent of blood, splattered on Ocasio-Cortez’s office, and a sign that reads, “AOC funds genocide in Gaza.”
Decolonize This Place says the vandalism is an “anonymous submission” from a group called the Boogie Down Liberation Front. The group does not appear to have any protest history or online presence. Police confirm the vandalism to the local NBC4 news outlet.
Anti-Israel protesters have repeatedly vandalized the offices of elected representatives and other perceived supporters of the Jewish state in New York.
❤️???? ???? • BREAKING • anonymous submission received from the Bronx • AOC office decorated, addressing her positions. The images arrived with the following note ????
“The bronx is sick and tired of people like AOC and Ritchie Torres using us as a stepping stone for their own… pic.twitter.com/QUdUZOoBMh
— DecolonizeThisPlace (@decolonize_this) July 21, 2025
The vandalism appears to be a response to Ocasio-Cortez voting last week against a Congressional amendment, sponsored by US Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, to cut funding for Israel’s air defense.
“Marjorie Taylor Greene’s amendment does nothing to cut off offensive aid to Israel nor end the flow of US munitions being used in Gaza. Of course I voted against it,” Ocasio-Cortez posted on X last week. “What it does do is cut off defensive Iron Dome capacities while allowing the actual bombs killing Palestinians to continue.”
GHF says UN agencies refusing offers to work together to bring more aid into Gaza
Palestinians pick up food parcels from a distribution point set up by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), on June 25, 2025. (Eyad BABA / AFP)
A spokesman for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation says that the US- and Israeli-backed initiative is willing to deliver food to Palestinians for the United Nations, which he says “has given up distribution altogether.”
“We can get their aid into Gaza safely and securely and have offered to help repeatedly, but they continue to reject our offers,” says GHF spokesman Chapin Fay in a media briefing.
The UN has argued that it will not cooperate with the GHF, as its distribution mechanism has placed Palestinians at risk by forcing them to walk long distances and cross IDF lines in order to pick up aid.
After a steadily improving situation, “desperation levels” in Gaza are rising, says Fay, as the other aid organizations cut back operations, and looting is widespread.
Fay says he was on the Gaza side of the Kerem Shalom crossing yesterday, and saw tons of aid from UN organizations sitting on the ground undelivered.
“What I saw was disturbing,” he says. “Desperately needed flour rotting on the side of the road. Rice from Jordan that has been sitting, baking for over 90 days. Already expired medical supplies. We spoke with drivers for other aid operations who described harrowing experiences of trucks being overrun and all their cargo looted, their trucks being destroyed.”
He says the driver asked if the GHF could provide security.
“We can provide security,” says Fay. “We can help them deliver aid. The fact that tens of thousands of pallets of aid are sitting inside Gaza, out of reach of starving civilians, is unacceptable.”
“GHF is ready, willing, and able to help the UN and any other aid organization in Gaza deliver aid,” he says.
In the coming days, he says, the GHF will start its “community distribution program,” which 370 individuals and groups have signed up for.
The UN says Israel restrictions and permit rejections are the reason for the mounting stockpiles of aid at the crossings, as aid organizations are regularly barred from transferring aid to warehouses and distribution sites.
Moreover, international organizations say that Israel’s refusal to name a viable alternative to Hamas has created a Somalia-like situation on the ground where the chaotic and desperate situation has significantly marred aid distribution.
Large fire reported at oil products factory in Iran’s Isfahan
A large fire broke out at an oil products factory in Iran’s Isfahan, state media reports, saying the fire was under control.
A fire under that broke out at an oil products factory in #Iran’s Isfahan is under control, state media report. https://t.co/TPjcRVyto3
— Al Arabiya English (@AlArabiya_Eng) July 21, 2025
Hostage families express alarm as IDF moves into area where captives are believed held
Ofir, the brother of kidnapped soldier Matan Angrest, speaks during an Economic Committee meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on July 21, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum expresses alarm amid reports the IDF has moved into the central Gaza area of Deir al-Balah for the first time, saying that the move endangers the captives who are believed held in these areas.
“The families of the hostages are shocked and alarmed by these reports,” the forum says in a statement.
“The families demand that the prime minister, defense minister, chief of staff, and IDF spokesperson appear before them and the Israeli public this evening to clearly explain why the offensive in the Deir al-Balah area does not put the hostages at serious risk,” they say. “As of this moment, we have received no official, organized updates or satisfactory answers on this matter.”
“The people of Israel will not forgive anyone who knowingly endangered the hostages — both the living and the deceased. No one will be able to claim they didn’t know what was at stake,” the forum says.
Israeli detained in Belgium says he was beaten by police
One of the two Israelis briefly detained in Belgium says that they were beaten by police.
“The officers hit us, we got blows to the face,” one of the unnamed men tells Channel 12 news. “They took us to a secret police station in the compound.”
The two were detained while at a music festival after an activist group that seeks to have Israelis prosecuted for alleged war crimes called for their arrests.
They were released after being questioned and Channel 12 reports that they have most likely already left Belgium.
Haredi politician dismisses Likud move to oust Edelstein as a technicality
United Torah Judaism MK Yitzhak Pindrus speaks during a committee meeting at the Knesset, February 10, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Former United Torah Judaism lawmaker Yitzhak Pindrus dismisses the Likud party’s move to remove MK Yuli Edelstein as chairman of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
“We want a law. All these technicalities don’t interest us. We’ve been through this for two and a half years. We want a law,” Pindrus tells The Times of Israel following faction whip Ofir Katz’s announcement that Likud would vote on Edelstein’s replacement on Wednesday.
Pindrus was one of three UTJ MKs pushed out of the Knesset last week under the so-called Norwegian Law, following the resignations of the party’s ministers. The Norwegian Law allows ministers and deputy ministers from large factions to resign from the Knesset, with their seats then filled by other members of their parties.
UTJ quit the coalition last Monday after being presented with a copy of a proposed enlistment bill prepared by Edelstein, which they argued violated the terms of a compromise reached last month when an effort was being made to prevent the Haredim from toppling the government ahead of the war with Iran.
They were followed on Wednesday by Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party Shas, which bolted the government while, unlike UTJ, remaining a member of the coalition.
Netanyahu reportedly recently proposed removing Edelstein as head of the committee in a bid to placate Shas, which responded that the move was too little, too late, and insisted on immediate progress on the draft exemption bill.
Neither Shas nor UTJ officially responded to the news of Edelstein’s pending ouster today.
25 Western nations issue joint call for end of war in Gaza, slam ‘dangerous’ aid distribution mechanism
Palestinians carry sacks of humanitarian aid unloaded from a convoy of trucks that were heading to Gaza City, in the northern Gaza Strip, July 20, 2025. (AP Photo/ Jehad Alshrafi)
Britain and 24 Western allies including Australia, Canada, France and Italy say in a joint statement the war in Gaza “must end now,” arguing civilians’ suffering has “reached new depths.”
“We urge the parties and the international community to unite in a common effort to bring this terrible conflict to an end, through an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire,” the group adds in the communique.
They say more than 800 Palestinians have been killed while seeking aid and condemned what it called the “drip feeding of aid and the inhumane killing of civilians.”
The majority of those killed were in the vicinity of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) sites, which the United States and Israel backed to take over aid distribution in Gaza from a network led by the United Nations.
“The Israeli government’s aid delivery model is dangerous, fuels instability and deprives Gazans of human dignity,” the countries’ foreign ministers say in a joint statement.
A number of European allies including Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia did not sign the statement.
Lapid says opposition members will resign from key Knesset committee if Edelstein ousted as head
Opposition Leader Yesh Atid party chief MK Yair Lapid leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on July 21, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Opposition leader Yair Lapid says that if the government ousts Likud MK Yuli Edelstein from his role as chairman of the powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, opposition members on the committee will resign.
“I announce here to the prime minister: if Yuli Edelstein is removed from his position, the opposition members serving on the committee will resign,” Lapid declares, speaking to the press before a Yesh Atid faction meeting.
He says that Edelstein’s removal is a blatant political maneuver by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to advance a “draft-dodging law” to accede to the demands of the ultra-Orthodox parties.
“Let every Jewish mother know that Benjamin Netanyahu is selling our children, our security, and the very idea of equality before the law to the Haredim,” he says.
“This is a minority government that lacks the legitimacy to promote this measure,” he continues.
When asked about next steps, Lapid says he will work during the upcoming recess to “gather 61 votes to dissolve the government” and trigger new elections.
He insists that after the recess, a new government will be elected and, going forward, “Anyone who does not enlist will not receive a single shekel from the state.”
Golan says Netanyahu abandoning Israel’s soldiers amid a war to appease ultra-Orthodox
Leader of The Democrats party Yair Golan leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on July 21, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Democrats chair Yair Golan says the government’s move to oust Likud MK Yuli Edelstein — whose insistence on strict penalties for draft dodgers has held up the draft exemption bill — exposes the government’s priorities.
“While our brave fighters battle in Gaza and on the northern front, Netanyahu chooses to push through a full draft-dodging law,” he says, speaking to the press before a faction meeting. “The same government that abandoned the hostages and the residents of the south and north is now abandoning the soldiers and the reservists.”
As the Knesset prepares to enter its summer recess, Golan declares that his party will not be taking a break. “The hostages will continue to rot and die in the tunnels, and our soldiers will go on fighting and getting injured unnecessarily,” he says.
“The Democrats will not go into recess. We will continue to fight — in the streets, in action, in meetings with the public – to bring down this government and build a worthy governing alternative,” he continues.
Golan also condemns Saturday’s attacks on Hadash-Tal MKs Ayman Odeh and Ofer Cassif, who were assaulted by far-right activists, during a protest in Ness Ziona.
“This is not a glitch,” he warns. “It is a deliberate ‘Ben Gvir-ization’ of the public sphere.”
In rare political remarks, Belgium’s king says Gaza war ‘a disgrace to all of humanity’
Belgium's King Philippe delivers a speech, ahead of Belgium's National Day, during a recording at the Royal Palace in Brussels, Wednesday, July 16, 2025. (Didier Lebrun/Pool Photo via AP)
Belgium’s King Philippe describes abuses in Gaza as a “disgrace to humanity” in a speech on the eve of Monday’s national day, unusually direct remarks on international affairs from a monarch who traditionally avoids public politics.
“I add my voice to all those who denounce the serious humanitarian abuses in Gaza, where innocent people are dying of hunger and being killed by bombs while trapped in their enclaves,” he says speaking at his palace in Brussels.
“The current situation has gone on for far too long. It is a disgrace to all of humanity. We support the call by the United Nations Secretary-General to immediately end this unbearable crisis.”
It was the first time Philippe has spoken out so strongly and unambiguously about a conflict in public. Belgium’s federal government has been more reserved in its criticism of the conflict in Gaza.
The king’s role in Belgium is limited to giving advice, support, and warnings to the government without making any political decisions.
Israel launched its assault on the Hamas terror group that rules Gaza following the October 2023 Hamas assault on southern Israel in which invading terrorists killed 1,200 people and captured 251 hostages. Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 59,000 people in Gaza, according to Hamas health officials there. Much of the territory has been laid waste and Israel has restricted food and other supplies.
Israel denies that its forces commit abuses in Gaza and says restrictions on supplies are needed to prevent aid from being diverted by terrorists.
Gantz says Netanyahu endangering Israel’s security to save his coalition
Leader of the Blue and White Party MK Benny Gantz leads a faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, on July 21, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Blue and White leader Benny Gantz accuses Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party of sacrificing Israel’s security to preserve the coalition, as it moves to oust Likud MK Yuli Edelstein from his post as chair of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
“Any Likud MK who votes to remove Edelstein should first have the courage to look our combat soldiers in the eye and tell them that’s what he’s doing,” Gantz says, speaking to the press prior to a faction meeting. “It’s not Edelstein being sacrificed — it’s Israel’s security, which has been abandoned for nearly two years in the fight over the draft.”
Edelstein, a senior Likud figure, opposes the government’s proposed draft exemption law for ultra-Orthodox yeshiva students — a key demand of Haredi parties. United Torah Judaism and Shas have already quit the government over the law’s delay, though Shas continues to vote with the government.
Gantz warns the coalition is sending the wrong message to young people preparing to enlist and to exhausted reservists still returning to the battlefield.
Slamming the government for “cowardice” and for failing to advance a genuine military service framework, he also criticizes its wartime priorities, saying it focuses on political survival instead of helping civilians and soldiers.
Liberman slams move to oust Edelstein as latest sacrifice to appease ultra-Orthodox
Yisrael Beytenu chair Avigdor Liberman leads a faction meeting at the Knesset on July 7, 2025 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman lashes out at Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition ahead of a Likud faction vote to replace MK Yuli Edelstein as chair of the Knesset’s powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
Liberman calls Edelstein, who has long been an obstacle to demands by Haredi parties regarding the draft exemption law, “the next victim of the draft-dodging government,” accusing Netanyahu of sacrificing him to appease ultra-Orthodox parties demanding new legislation to exempt yeshiva students from military service.
The Yisrael Beytenu leader also criticizes remarks made yesterday by United Torah Judaism chief Yitzhak Goldknopf, including that Netanyahu and Justice Minister Yariv Levin had promised Haredi leaders that the exemptions would be enshrined as a Basic Law. The UTJ chief said that the 54,000 draft orders will not be enforced.
“The incitement to evade military service by Haredi leaders has nothing Jewish about it; it is heresy,” Liberman says, accusing the ultra-Orthodox leadership of “holding their public hostage for power, honor and money.”
“All the great sages of Israel were fighters. Maimonides and Rashi worked full-time jobs,” he continues. “So any so-called ‘leadership’ that incites to idleness and draft evasion is a heretical leadership.”
He adds that he believes the civil rights of those who don’t serve in the army should be revoked, adding, “In most modern countries, there are restrictions on voting rights, and that’s how it should be here too.”
Troops said operating in central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah for first time since start of war
A man and woman ride in a donkey-drawn cart while behind smoke billows from Israeli strikes, along Salaheddin road in Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip on July 21, 2025. (Photo by Eyad BABA / AFP)
Israeli troops have begun ground operations in the Deir al-Balah area of central Gaza, for the first time since the beginning of the war.
Earlier, it was reported in Gaza that IDF tanks advanced into southern and eastern areas of Deir al-Balah. Several people were reportedly killed by tank shelling there.
The IDF yesterday issued an evacuation warning for several zones in the southwest of Deir al-Balah.
The ground operations come after Palestinian reports of artillery shelling and airstrikes overnight and this morning in the area.
The IDF has not yet officially commented.
WSJ: Reservist says troops fired on aid-seeking Palestinians who were carrying white flags
Palestinians carry humanitarian aid packages near the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation distribution center operated by the US-backed organization in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, Thursday, June 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Abdel Kareem Hana)
An Israeli reservist tells the Wall Street Journal that soldiers fired at aid-seeking Palestinians who veered off approved paths even though some of them were carrying white flags.
The testimony from the unnamed reservist comes amid repeated instances of troops opening fire on Palestinians near aid sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
“We have an unwritten rule that if you are worried and they get too close and you see that it could be something that puts you and your team at risk, you don’t take that risk,” he tells the WSJ.
The report quotes the soldier as saying that the troops warned the Palestinians not to come close to the military positions, but they were ignored.
He says if the Palestinians cross a red line, the soldiers open fire, with instructions to shoot in the air or at their legs.
This specific incident occurred in mid-June, the reservist says
Ben Gvir says he wants vacated Housing Ministry, calls AG a ‘mafioso’
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir leads an Otzma Yehudit faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem on July 21, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir confirms his interest in the Construction and Housing Ministry and sharply attacks the attorney general, in a fiery press conference ahead of his far-right party Otzma Yehudit’s meeting.
In response to a question from The Times of Israel about whether he is seeking portfolios vacated by ultra-Orthodox parties Shas and United Torah Judaism following their exit from the government last week, Ben Gvir says he is particularly interested in the Construction and Housing Ministry.
“This would allow me to help reservists, soldiers,” he says. “Every soldier who has served a certain amount of time shouldn’t merely get discounts for land purchase, but should be given free land in the Negev, Galilee, etc.”
He quickly adds that he would want this portfolio in addition to, and not instead of, his current role as national security minister.
Tourism Minister Haim Katz (Likud) has already been appointed acting housing minister following the resignation of Yitzhak Goldknopf of the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party.
Ben Gvir also delivers a personal and pointed attack on Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara, following Sunday’s unanimous vote by a five-member ministerial committee, including Ben Gvir, to dismiss her from her post.
Calling her a “mafioso” and accusing her of political persecution, the minister says, “I’m not afraid of you or your mafiosos” and that “she needs to go home.”
The decision, which the committee had approved in principle on Thursday, now passes to the cabinet, which can schedule a vote on the matter at its next meeting on Sunday, July 27.
Ben Gvir also lashes out at the proposed hostage deal with Hamas, calling it a capitulation.
“This deal will not be a ‘tremendous achievement,’ but a tremendous retreat” from “areas and strategic corridors conquered with the blood of our soldiers,” he says.
“We all want to see the hostages come home safe and sound,” he continues. “But there are two questions that must be asked — even if they are unpopular: At what price? And by what means?”
“The price of returning a number of hostages in a partial deal is another October 7 in a few years,” he says.
Foreign Ministry confirms 2 Israelis briefly detained in Belgium amid reported war crimes probe
Israeli flags fly in the crowd at Belgium's Tomorrowland music festival, July 19, 2025 (X, used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)
The Foreign Ministry confirms that two Israelis, a civilian and an IDF soldier, on vacation in Belgium were detained yesterday for questioning and released shortly thereafter.
“The Foreign Ministry and the IDF handled the matter and are in contact with the two,” says the ministry in a statement, without adding details on the cause of the arrest.
Belgium’s public broadcaster reported, citing the federal prosecutor’s office, that two Israelis were briefly detained and questioned by Belgian police while attending the Tomorrowland music festival in Belgium, after a complaint was lodged against them by the Hind Rajab Foundation.
In its complaint, the anti-Israel group had alleged that the two were “responsible for grave international crimes, including war crimes and genocide” in the Gaza Strip.
According to public broadcaster RTBF, the federal prosecutor’s office moved to detain the two Israelis after reviewing the Hind Rajab Foundation’s complaint and determining that it had the jurisdiction to do so based on a 2024 amendment to the Belgian Code of Criminal Procedure.
The men were detained by police, questioned, and then released, the report said.
Pope has first call with Palestinian Authority leader Abbas
Pope Leo XIV waves the crowd after the Angelus prayer in Piazza della Liberta (Liberty Square) in front of Palazzo Apostolico (Apostolic Palace) in the summer papal estate in Castel Gandolfo, 40 km southeast of Rome, on July 20, 2025. (Photo by Alberto PIZZOLI / AFP)
Pope Leo speaks by phone to the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, about the conflict in Gaza and violence in the West Bank, the Vatican says.
It was the first official conversation between the two men since Leo’s papacy began.
“The Holy Father repeated his appeal for international humanitarian law to be fully respected, emphasizing in particular the obligation to protect civilians and sacred places, the prohibition of the indiscriminate use of force and of the forced transfer of the population,” the Vatican writes.
The pope emphasized “the urgent need to provide assistance to those most vulnerable to the consequences of the conflict and to allow the adequate entry of humanitarian aid,” it says.
It followed a call on Friday between the pope and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, a day after a strike by Israel on Gaza’s only Catholic Church that killed three people.
AG accuses Ben Gvir of witness intimidation, abuse of power for failing to promote cop involved in PM’s trial
National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir (left) and Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara. (Composite: Liron Moldovan/Flash90; Israel Bar Association)
In a stern letter to National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara implicates the far-right leader in witness intimidation and obstruction of justice over his refusal to promote a police officer involved in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s corruption trial.
For more than a month, Ben Gvir blocked the promotion of Supt. Rinat Saban, a high-ranking officer in the police Investigations and Intelligence Division. The minister’s refusal to sign off on Saban’s promotion led to an overt clash with law enforcement officials last week.
In her letter, Baharav-Miara accuses the minister of factoring in political considerations in holding off on Saban’s promotion, calling his behavior “highly unusual and unprecedented compared to past police promotions.”
Baharav-Miara warns Ben Gvir in the letter that it was “not just inappropriate but also an abuse of power” for the minister to use his powers in a way that could deter “police officers… from handling criminal cases against government members or their associates, intimidate witnesses in such proceedings. and disrupt the proper procedure of criminal proceedings.”
She accuses Ben Gvir of “unlawful political interference in criminal proceedings” and adds that his behavior is a “blatant violation” of a legally binding agreement he came to with her in April.
Under the agreement, Ben Gvir committed to curbing his involvement in police promotions and operational decision making, and Baharav-Miara agreed to defend him in the High Court against petitions demanding the minister’s dismissal.
Earlier today, the attorney general said in a filing to the High Court that despite the agreement, Ben Gvir had continued to undermine police independence, which could merit his dismissal as national security minister.
Writing to Ben Gvir, Baharav-Miara says “these principles were intended precisely to prevent the kind of situations that are described above,” referring to Saban’s lack of promotion.
“A phenomenon such as this, whose damage to the rule of law is immensely severe, is unacceptable,” says the attorney general.
The letter adds that Ben Gvir already signed off on Saban’s promotion to the rank of chief superintendent in December 2024, conditional on her completing the police command and staff course. The police investigator completed the course in April 2025 — a month after she testified against Netanyahu in court — and Ben Gvir’s signature was once again required as a formality confirming her advancement in rank, Baharav-Miara says.
“Your required signature for the actual conferral of the rank is a formal act, stemming from custom, and is not necessary under the Police Ordinance. This custom cannot be misused as a means of arbitrarily withholding a promotion in rank,” writes the attorney general, demanding he sign off on Saban’s promotion without delay.
In addition to her testimony against Netanyahu in March, Saban also investigated the premier’s advisers Jonatan Urich and Ofer Golan on suspicion that they harassed Shlomo Filber, a state witness in Case 4000 — the most serious of the three cases against Netanyahu.
The premier is alleged in the case to have secured regulatory favors for telecommunications mogul chief Shaul Elovitch in exchange for positive press coverage from a news outlet he owned.
Staunchly pro-Israel GOP senator demands punishment for settlers who lit fire next to church ruins in West Bank
South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the strongest pro-Israel voices in Congress for decades, says he is “incredibly upset” by settler violence near the ruins of a historic church in the West Bank.
“There was a Catholic Church burned in the West Bank,” says Graham, referring to a brush fire reportedly set by Jewish extremists that reached the walls of the compound of the 5th-century church, as well as the nearby Christian cemetery.
Graham says he is sending a letter to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government demanding an account of what happened in the incident.
At the same time, Graham stresses that he is an “unapologetic supporter of the State of Israel.”
“As a Christian, you can go to Jerusalem and worship safely. As a Muslim, you can do the same. It’s a very religiously diverse country.”
“What’s happening in the West Bank bothers the hell out of me,” he continues.
“You had a Palestinian Catholic Church burned to the ground,” he says, misrepresenting the incident. The site consists of the stone ruins of the 1,500-year-old church, and the fire reached the grass along the remaining walls of the church.
“I want to find out who did it, and I want them to be punished,” he says. “And if it was settlers from the West Bank, I want them to be punished.”
Such violence, he says “needs to stop.”
US Senator Lindsey Graham:
There was a Palestinian Catholic church burned in the West Bank.
If Israeli settlers are the ones who burned the church in the West Bank, I want them to be punished.
I will write to the Israeli government regarding the burning of a church in the West… pic.twitter.com/9wfmbs6gSL
— Clash Report (@clashreport) July 21, 2025
Air Force downs drone launched at Israel, likely from Yemen
A drone launched at Israel from “the east” was intercepted by the Israeli Air Force a short while ago, the IDF says.
No sirens sounded, “according to protocol,” the military says.
The drone was likely launched from Yemen, according to preliminary IDF assessments.
Two Israelis at Tomorrowland festival briefly detained, questioned by Belgian police after activist group called for their arrest
Israeli flags fly in the crowd at Belgium's Tomorrowland music festival, July 19, 2025 (X, used in accordance with clause 27a of the copyright law)
Two Israelis were briefly detained and questioned by Belgian police while attending the Tomorrowland festival in Belgium, Belgium’s public broadcaster reports, citing the federal prosecutor’s office, after a complaint was lodged against them by the Hind Rajab Foundation.
In its complaint, the anti-Israel group had alleged that the two were “responsible for grave international crimes, including war crimes and genocide” in the Gaza Strip
According to public broadcaster RTBF, the federal prosecutor’s office moved to detain the two Israelis after reviewing the Hind Rajab Foundation’s complaint and determining that it had the jurisdiction to do so based on a 2024 amendment to the Belgian Code of Criminal Procedure.
The men were detained by police, questioned, and then released, the report says.
It adds that the federal prosecutor’s office has declined to provide any more information on the matter at this time.
The Hind Rajab Foundation lauds the incident as a “turning point in the global pursuit of accountability.”
Launched in September 2024, the Hind Rajab Foundation has used social media posts by Israeli soldiers, officers and reservists to locate them in an attempt to have them arrested for alleged war crimes when they travel abroad.
Health Ministry confirms second case of West Nile virus this year; infected mosquitoes caught in Eilat
The Health Ministry confirms the second case of the West Nile virus in a patient in central Israel this year, after the first was confirmed in early June.
At the same time, the Environmental Protection Ministry reports the capture of mosquitoes infected with the West Nile virus in Eilat.
It has instructed local authorities at the locations where infected mosquitoes were found to further expand monitoring and pest control efforts.
West Nile Fever is caused by a virus found primarily in birds. It is transmitted to humans and various animals through mosquito bites from mosquitoes that feed on infected birds. Most individuals infected with West Nile virus do not develop symptoms of West Nile fever.
Symptoms appear in approximately 20 percent of infected individuals with varying degrees of severity, including fever, general malaise, headache, or widespread body aches. Neurological complications occur in a minority of cases, with the elderly being at increased risk.
To avoid mosquito bites and encounters, the Environmental Protection Ministry recommends that the public drain and dry standing water sources that could serve as mosquito breeding grounds, including containers that could accumulate water, such as old tires and buckets, and to prevent water accumulation at the bottoms of pots and planters.
It also recommends emptying or replacing water at least once a week in containers such as flower vases and pet drinking bowls, covering swimming pools and cleaning and emptying gutters.
Health Ministry says medical supplies delivered to hospital in Sweida overnight
This handout picture, released on July 21, 2025, shows crates set to be filled with medical supplies and sent to a hospital in Sweida, Syria, amid sectarian violence there. (Courtesy Israeli Health Ministry)
The Health Ministry announces that it sent medical supplies overnight to a hospital in the Druze-majority Sweida province of southern Syria, where over a week of sectarian violence has left hundreds dead.
Citing Israel’s “commitment to our Druze brethren,” the Health Ministry says the shipment was delivered to the hospital by the IDF and other security officials.
Syrian media reported last night that four Israeli Air Force helicopters dropped the aid off at the main hospital in Sweida’s provincial capital, of the same name.
The ministry says the overnight delivery follows “reports of severe damage to the hospital.” The nature of the damage is unclear.
The supplies include life-saving medicine and equipment to treat trauma, according to the Health Ministry, which says it is also planning future shipments.
Plans to deliver the supplies were first announced on Saturday. The ministry says its director general, Moshe Bar Siman-Tov, held a meeting on the matter Saturday with the mayor of Majdal Shams, Dolan Abu Saleh, as well as local doctors and Salman Zarka, the head of the Ziv Medical Center in Safed.
“In light of Israel’s commitment to our Druze brethren, as has been expressed over the past week amid the events in southern Syria, the Health Ministry has taken upon itself to transfer medical supplies and medicine to better assist the wounded and sick in the area,” Bar Siman-Tov says in a statement released by the Health Ministry.
Settlers clash with security forces near Ramallah as they work to demolish illegal outpost
Settlers rebuilding the Tzur Harel outpost in the West Bank on November 12, 2024. (X video screenshot: used in accordance with Clause 27a of the Copyright Law)
Radical settler activists are currently confronting Border Police personnel who are trying to evacuate and demolish an illegal outpost in the central West Bank area, just east of Ramallah.
After security forces began to arrive at the outpost, dubbed Tzur Harel, settler activist groups reported that hundreds of activists were on their way to the site to protest against the demolition.
Radical settler activists clashing with Border Police services who are evacuating and demolishing an illegal settlement outpost in the Benjamin region of the West Bank just east of Ramallah pic.twitter.com/K4RDaBeIvT
— Jeremy Sharon (@jeremysharon) July 21, 2025
Israeli officials have said that Tzur Harel, which is located on private Palestinian land, has been the source of violent nationalistic activity, including on several occasions last year during previous demolition efforts.
Extremist settler activists violently attacked Civil Administration and Border Police personnel who were carrying out evacuation and demolition orders on July 3, 2024. They threw firebombs at the security forces, as well as rocks at vehicles belonging to the security services traveling on a nearby road.
Settlers returned to the site shortly after being evacuated and were removed again a week later July 7, only to return once more.
The site was demolished again in August that year, and once more in November 2024, when a soldier was hit in the head by a glass bottle thrown by rioters during the evacuation effort.
Likud lawmakers demand ‘urgent’ meeting to pass Haredi exemption bill, say doing so is matter of ‘national interest’
Multiple Likud ministers and MKs call on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to arrange an “urgent” meeting of the right-wing factions to advance an outline for legislation that will largely exempt Haredi males from IDF conscription to “ensure continued partnership with the ultra-Orthodox public and its representatives in the Knesset.”
The letter argues that there is a “real danger of breaking up the partnership with our Haredi brothers, who have stood shoulder to shoulder with us all… in times of war” and “in times of crisis” and “showed national responsibility” by joining the coalition “when parties pretending to be right-wing rejected cooperation with the government.”
“For the first time in many years, we are witnessing a precedent-setting, genuine, profound, and courageous move led by the Haredi parties in a sincere attempt to bring about a new and fair regulation of the conscription issue,” they claim.
In a veiled attack on Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee chairman Yuli Edelstein, they argue that advancement on the issue had been stymied by presenting demands “apparently intended to torpedo” any agreement.
“We cannot turn our backs on our natural partners,” nor “harm the continuity of right-wing rule — this is a national interest of the highest order,” the Likud politicians declare.
The letter was written by Likud lawmaker Eliyahu Revivo and signed by Environmental Protection Minister Idit Silman, Transportation Minister Miri Regev and Energy Minister Eli Cohen, as well as several party MKs.
Likud is slated to hold a faction meeting to deal with replacing Edelstein on Wednesday.
Report: Hamas-appointed director of Gaza’s field hospitals arrested by IDF
Palestinian media reports that the IDF recently arrested Marwan al-Hams, the director of Yusuf al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah. According to the reports, al-Hams also serves as the head of the Gaza Strip’s field hospitals, a position within the Hamas-run health ministry.
The IDF has yet to issue a response.
Edelstein to be ousted as defense committee chair amid rift over Haredi conscription, vote on replacement to be held Wednesday
Likud's Yuli Edelstein leads a Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, July 21, 2025 (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party will hold a faction meeting in the Knesset on Wednesday to decide on a new chairman for the powerful Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, replacing Likud MK Yuli Edelstein.
A message sent to party MKs today informs them that coalition whip and faction chairman Ofir Katz has decided to “hold elections” for the position and that nominations for Edelstein’s replacement can be submitted until tomorrow at 8 p.m.
According to Hebrew media reports, Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky, a member of Edelstein’s committee, has put himself forth as a candidate. Fellow committee member Boaz Bismuth’s name has also been raised in connection with the position.
Speaking with national broadcaster Kan, Likud MK Nissim Vaturi says that he too intends to seek the position.
The Ynet news site reported earlier today that there is growing pressure on Netanyahu from within his party to oust Edelstein as the committee chair over his apparent refusal to draft a law on Haredi military conscription deemed acceptable by ultra-Orthodox lawmakers, thereby potentially jeopardizing the government.
Last Monday, the Haredi United Torah Judaism party quit the coalition over the government’s failure to legislate military exemptions for full-time yeshiva students. It was followed on Wednesday by Sephardic ultra-Orthodox party Shas, which bolted the government while remaining a member of the coalition.
Edelstein has said any conscription law would have to include personal and institutional sanctions on draft dodgers. His bill failed to deliver on several key Haredi demands, including offering full amnesty to yeshiva students who have already received and ignored enlistment orders.
US envoy doubles down on criticism of Israel’s intervention in Syria, says it ‘came at a very bad time’
US Ambassador to Turkey and Special Envoy to Syria Thomas Barrack speaks during an interview with The Associated Press at the US Embassy in Aukar, a northern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, July 21, 2025. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar)
US ambassador to Turkey Thomas Barrack, who also serves as a special envoy on Syria, says there is “no plan B” to working with current Syrian authorities to unite the country still reeling from a nearly 14-year civil war and now wracked by clashes between Druze and Bedouin militias in the southern city of Sweida.
“The killing, the revenge, the massacres on both sides” are “intolerable,” but “the current government of Syria, in my opinion, has conducted themselves as best they can as a nascent government with very few resources to address the multiplicity of issues that arise in trying to bring a diverse society together,” he tells the Associated Press.
Regarding Israel’s strikes on Syrian military forces and targets in Damascus, he says: “The United States was not asked, nor did they participate in that decision, nor was it the United States’ responsibility in matters that Israel feels is for its own self-defense.”
However, Barrack says Israel’s intervention “creates another very confusing chapter” and “came at a very bad time.”
Israel says it targeted government forces who were reportedly massacring Druze alongside Bedouin militiamen. Hundreds of Israeli Druze also rushed across the border to fight, leading Israeli security forces to pursue them to bring them back.
Separately, Barrack tells Reuters that Washington will not compel Israel to do anything with regard to the steps it takes against Hezbollah in Lebanon, even as he expresses opposition to Israel’s recent strikes in Syria and doubles down on support for the new Syrian government.
“The US has no business in trying to compel Israel to do anything… America could only influence,” he says in a press conference in Beirut following meetings with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam.
He appears to be referring to Beirut’s demand for Israel to withdraw from the five remaining locations it has held onto along the Lebanon-Israel border.
Lebanon has previously appealed for the US to pressure Israel into withdrawing.
According to Lebanese outlet LBCI, Barrack also says the disarmament of Hezbollah is an internal Lebanese issue on which Washington would only serve as a mediator and adviser.
“We are not going to have more boots on the ground in an adversarial nature anywhere,” adds Barrack.
Aoun has vowed to maintain a state monopoly on arms — a veiled threat against the extensively armed Iran-backed terror group Hezbollah, which emerged weakened militarily and politically after a 13-month war with Israel that ended with a November 27 ceasefire agreement.
Since the agreement came into effect, the IDF has maintained a presence at five strategic points in Lebanon and occasionally struck Hezbollah targets it said were violating the conditions of the ceasefire.
IDF chief moves to reduce reservist deployment to active combat zones by 30%
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has ordered a 30% reduction in the number of reservists deployed to active combat zones in the coming months, as the army grapples with growing signs of troop burnout and public frustration over the prolonged war.
The move, first reported by Army Radio this morning, is set to be implemented gradually across Gaza, the West Bank, and the northern border, and is aimed at easing the burden on the reserve corps, which has carried much of the military load since the war began with the Hamas-led October 7, 2023, onslaught.
A source familiar with the decision confirms the plan to The Times of Israel, noting that the reduction hinges on the absence of major security escalations, such as renewed conflict with Iran or another large-scale operation in Gaza.
The move follows a record mobilization in late May, when the government approved the call-up of 450,000 reservists — the largest in Israel’s history. Some reserve troops have now been summoned for duty as many as seven times since the war began, despite earlier pledges to cap reserve service in 2025.
Paramedics, IDF treating 7 people for light-moderate injuries in West Bank bus crash
Paramedics and IDF medics are treating seven wounded in a bus crash next to Nabi Musa, near Maale Adumim in the West Bank.
Among those wounded is a young man in his 20s, with moderate injuries and head trauma, alongside six others with light injuries. Three of those in good condition are being taken to nearby hospitals in Jerusalem, the Magen David Adom emergency service reports.
10 injured in minibus crash near Ma’ale Adumim
Ten people were injured in a minibus crash near the Ma’ale Adumim settlement in the West Bank, says the Magen David Adom emergency service.
Paramedics are treating the wounded at the scene, all of whom are still conscious, after the vehicle flipped over.
Smotrich taps Maharan Frozenfar as new chief of Treasury’s budget department
Brig. Gen. (res.) Maharan Frozenfar (Courtesy Finance Ministry)
Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich taps Brig. Gen. (res.) Maharan Frozenfar as the new chief of the Treasury’s budget department.
Frozenfar, 59, who previously served as head of the budget division at the Defense Ministry and as financial adviser to the army’s chief of staff, is set to replace outgoing Finance Ministry budget commissioner Yogev Gradus. The appointment is subject to the approval of the appointments committee.
Following his discharge from the IDF in 2013, Frozenfar founded and managed strategic and financial consulting firm M-Faculty, and served as chairman of the advisory committee to the Finance Ministry.
Commenting on the appointment, Smotrich describes Frozenfar as a “professional, with many years of experience in both the public and private sectors.”
“In a period of enormous economic challenges alongside historic opportunities, I am confident that Maharan will make a decisive contribution to shaping the budget, streamlining government work, and advancing Israel’s economy from victory to growth,” Smotrich states.
In first, IDF officials say Yemen strikes were carried out with drones, not fighter jets
The Israeli Air Force strike against the Houthis in Yemen this morning was carried out by a drone, and not fighter jets, military officials say.
All previous IAF strikes in Yemen, located some 1,800 kilometers from Israel, involved dozens of fighter jets, refuelers, and spy planes.
US, Israel reach resolution on issue of visas for visiting Christians after row goes public
A solution was reached yesterday to the issue of visas for visiting Christian groups — which dominated headlines last week after a furious letter from US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee was leaked to the press — in a meeting yesterday between the Prime Minister’s Office, the Interior Ministry, and the US embassy, an Israeli lawyer who represents Christians in Israel tells The Times of Israel.
“Thanks to the hard work and fruitful cooperation between the US Ambassador, the Ministry of Interior and the Prime Minister’s Office, a solution has been reached to the satisfaction of all parties,” says Calev Myers. “The Evangelical Christian organizations active in Israel, which represent the vast majority of Zionists in the world today, will receive all of the visas they need through a streamlined and efficient application process.”
In his letter to Interior Minister Moshe Arbel last week, Huckabee threatened to publicly declare that Israel no longer welcomes Christian groups to Israel over what he said was Jerusalem’s failure to approve tourist visas for evangelical missions.
AG suggests Ben Gvir still interfering inappropriately in police work, possibly meriting dismissal
L: National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90); R: Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara (Oren Ben Hakoon/Pool)
In a letter to the High Court today, Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara indicates that Itamar Ben Gvir has continually exploited his powers as national security minister to undermine police independence, which could merit his dismissal.
The letter sent today was requested by the High Court in late April, after Baharav-Miara came to an agreement with the far-right minister in a last-ditch effort to curb his interference in police promotions and decision making.
Baharav-Miara was set to provide an update on Ben Gvir’s adherence to the legally binding compromise by July 15, but instead does so six days late.
In the letter, she writes that the arrangement with Ben Gvir is “not without difficulties, and monitoring the actual implementation of the principles will be far from simple on a practical level.”
The attorney general has demanded that Ben Gvir accept restrictions meant to preclude him from undue interference in police’s personnel decisions and policy regarding protests and investigations before she agrees to defend him in the High Court against petitions for his dismissal.
The ongoing difficulties in implementing the restrictions indicate that Baharav-Miara may backtrack on her conditional legal support for Ben Gvir against petitions for his dismissal.
Baharav-Miara requests that the High Court give her until August 5 to submit a final update regarding the agreement with Ben Gvir.
Critics of Ben Gvir, legal experts, and the attorney general herself have accused the minister of using police promotions as a carrot-and-stick to shape cops’ decision-making and advance his far-right political agenda via law enforcement.
Just last week, Baharav-Miara decried Ben Gvir’s refusal to sign off on the promotion of a police investigator involved in one of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s legal trials. She said Ben Gvir’s move may constitute a “blatant violation” of the agreement, Haaretz reported.
In bid to thwart coalition efforts to win over Haredim, opposition withdraws no-confidence motions from Knesset agenda
Members of Knesset seen in the plenum at the parliament in Jerusalem on June 11, 2025. (Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
In a bid to hamper the coalition’s final legislative push before the end of the Knesset summer legislative session, the opposition has decided to withdraw all no-confidence motions from the agenda during today’s Knesset plenum session.
The opposition’s reasoning is that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government will have difficulty passing bills without the ultra-Orthodox factions. By declining to advance its no-confidence motions, potentially hours of debate will be shaved from the parliamentary agenda — thus limiting the time the coalition has to reach deals to obtain the Haredi parties’ support.
“We’ve pulled the no-confidence motions so they don’t have time to buy them off and get them to back laws supported by the coalition,” an opposition source tells The Times of Israel.
Last week, United Torah Judaism bolted the coalition, while fellow Haredi party Shas left the government while remaining within the coalition. Both parties had been boycotting coalition bills in the weeks prior in an effort to pressure the government to pass a law exempting yeshiva students from military service.
Iran, China, Russia to discuss UN threat to reimpose sanctions on Tehran on Tuesday
A trilateral meeting between Iran, Russia and China will take place on Tuesday regarding Tehran’s nuclear program and the United Nations snapback mechanism, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei says.
The UN snapback mechanism refers to efforts to reimpose international sanctions on the Islamic Republic.
Baghaei also accuses Britain, France and Germany of failing to respect the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, after they threatened to reimpose sanctions over its atomic program.
“The European parties have been at fault and negligent in implementing” the nuclear agreement, he says.
The three European countries have warned that sanctions could be reimposed on Iran if it does not return to the negotiating table over its nuclear program.
Syrian government begins evacuating Bedouin families from Sweida in bid to uphold truce
This handout picture released by the official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on July 21, 2025, shows a convoy of buses carrying evacuated Bedouin families in southern Syria's Sweida as government security forces deploy in the area. (SANA / AFP)
The Syrian government has started evacuating Bedouin families trapped inside the majority-Druze city of Sweida, where Druze militiamen and Bedouin fighters have clashed for over a week, killing hundreds and threatening to unravel the country’s fragile postwar transition.
Buses filled with Bedouin families are accompanied by Syrian Arab Red Crescent vehicles and ambulances. Some families leave on trucks with their belongings.
Syrian authorities give no further details about the evacuation and how it ties into the broader agreement, following failed talks for a hostage swap deal Saturday.
However, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor says that as part of the agreement, the Bedouin fighters will have to release Druze women they were holding captive, and leave the province.
The evacuation comes a day after Syrian state media reported that the government had coordinated with some officials in Sweida to bring in buses to evacuate some 1,500 Bedouins from the city.
Syrian Interior Minister Ahmad al-Dalati told state broacaster SANA that the initiative would also allow displaced civilians from Sweida to return, as the fighting has largely stopped and efforts for a complete ceasefire are ongoing.
“We have imposed a security cordon in the vicinity of Sweida to keep it secure and to stop the fighting there,” al-Dalati told SANA. “This will preserve the path that will lead to reconciliation and stability in the province.”
The clashes in Sweida have led to a series of targeted sectarian attacks against the Druze community, followed by revenge attacks against the Bedouins. The UN International Organization for Migration says some 128,571 people were displaced in the hostilities that started with a series of tit-for-tat kidnappings and attacks a week ago.
Amid the violence, Israel launched dozens of airstrikes in the Druze-majority Sweida province, vowing to protect the minority and targeting government forces who had effectively sided with the Bedouins. Hundreds of Israeli Druze also rushed across the border to Syria to fight alongside the Syrian Druze, leading Israeli security forces to pursue them in a bid to bring them back.
IDF says it destroyed Houthi military infrastructure in Hodeida port strikes
The IDF says its airstrikes at Yemen’s port of Hodeida destroyed “military infrastructure of the Houthi terror regime.”
The targets included “engineering equipment working to restore port infrastructure, fuel tanks, and vessels used for military activity and [attacks] against the State of Israel and ships in the maritime area near the port,” the military says.
Israel has targeted the Hodeida port several times in response to the Houthis’ missile and drone attacks. The IDF says it is used by the Houthis for terror activity, including importing weapons from Iran.
“The IDF identified continued activity and attempts by the Houthi terror regime’s forces to restore the terror infrastructure at the port; therefore, components used to advance this activity were targeted,” the military says.
Amid Israeli strikes in Hodeida, Katz warns Yemen’s fate ‘will be the same as Tehran’
Defense Minister Israel Katz says in a statement that the IDF is striking “terror targets of the Houthi terror regime at the port of Hodeida and is forcefully enforcing any attempt to restore the previously attacked terror infrastructure.”
Katz says the “fate of Yemen will be the same as Tehran.”
“The Houthis will pay a heavy price for launching missiles at the State of Israel. We will continue to act at any time and in any place to defend the State of Israel,” he adds.
Israel carrying out strikes on Houthi targets in Yemen in response to recent missile fire
Destruction at the port in Yemen's city of Hodeida after Israeli warplanes struck Houthi rebel-held positions, on May 6, 2025. (AFP)
The Israeli Air Force is carrying out strikes in the Hodeida area of western Yemen, The Times of Israel has learned.
The strikes come in response to recent Houthi missile and drone attacks on Israel.
Since the last Israeli strikes in Yemen on July 7, the Houthis have launched six ballistic missiles and several drones at Israel.
Minister says IDF should expand Gaza op, even at risk of endangering hostages
Settlements and National Projects Minister Orit Strock attends a Religious Zionism faction meeting at the Knesset in Jerusalem, January 27, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
National Missions and Settlements Minister Orit Strock calls for the IDF to expand its operations in Gaza to encompass the entire Strip, including areas where hostages are known to be held, even though doing so would likely endanger them further.
“There must not be ‘don’t touch me’ zones [in Gaza], because it endangers residents of the Gaza border communities and all the residents of the south,” the Religious Zionism minister tells the Haredi Kol Barama radio station. “To win the war, [we] need to control those areas as well, and not leave them as terror hubs above and below ground.”
She says that while forces must make a “great effort” not to harm the hostages being held in these areas, it could happen anyway.
“It’s not right to refrain from vanquishing Hamas there,” she says. Terror operatives in these no-go zones open fire on southern Israel daily, and try to kidnap soldiers, she says.
“That also risks lives,” she asserts, adding that she “cannot make calculations about whether this person’s life is more important than that person’s life.”
In response, the Hostages Families Forum accuses the far-right minister, who has repeatedly expressed opposition to a truce-hostage deal, of “betting on the fate of the hostages and normalizing their captivity.”
“Strock is leading to the sacrifice of the hostages… and along with them, the values on which the State of Israel was founded, all in the name of an endless, aimless, irrational war — a war that must end for the sake of the entire nation of Israel,” says the forum.
“It’s unsurprising coming from someone who has, since the beginning, been a stubborn obstacle to saving the hostages. This is a disgrace for the government.”
Police arrest dozens for alleged arms, drug trafficking following year-long undercover operation
Illegally-trafficked weapons acquired by a police informant over the past year, as part of a covert investigation that was unveiled on July 21, 2025. (Israel Police)
A civilian undercover agent helped cops arrest dozens of people this morning on suspicion of weapons and drugs trafficking, police say, revealing a covert operation that had been taking place over the past year.
The agent, who was recruited by the police’s Lahav 433 major crimes unit, gathered evidence against the suspects, who were allegedly involved in illegal firearms trafficking and dealing cocaine worth hundreds of thousands of shekels.
According to Lahav 433 commander Manny Binyamin, the agent had been a “powerful criminal figure” whom police “transformed into a strategic evidence-gathering asset at the heart of Israel’s underworld.”
The agent carried out over 30 controlled transactions with the suspects, leading police to acquire 18 handguns, three M16 assault rifles and over 1.5 kilograms (3.3 lbs) of cocaine, police say. Binyamin says the staged deals implicated over 50 suspects involved in illegal weapons trade within the Arab community.
Police say that this morning, Israeli security forces, including police and Border Police officers, raided suspects’ homes across the country and arrested 48 people. The detainees, suspected of firearms and drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit a crime and additional offenses, will be brought today to the Rishon Lezion Magistrate’s Court, where police will request to extend their remand.
Senior officers involved in the case, including Deputy Commissioner Avshalom Peled and Investigations and Intelligence head Boaz Blatt, attended a ceremony unveiling the agent’s undercover operation this morning. Peled calls police’s use of undercover agents “an inseparable part of the Israel Police’s uncompromising war against serious crime.”
“This includes confronting criminal organizations, violent disputes and the trafficking of illegal weapons that often end up in the hands of both criminal and terrorist actors,” he says.
Likud backbencher said seeking to replace Edelstein as chair of committee responsible for Haredi conscription bill
Likud MK Hanoch Milwidsky in a meeting of the Knesset Constitution, Law, and Justice Committee, November 25, 2024. (Noam Moskowitz, Office of the Knesset Spokesperson/ File)
Likud backbencher Hanoch Milwidsky is reportedly gearing up to challenge his fellow party member Yuli Edelstein for the leadership of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee.
According to the Ynet news site, there is growing pressure on Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu from within his Likud party to oust Edelstein over the committee chair’s failure to draft a law on Haredi military conscription deemed acceptable by ultra-Orthodox lawmakers, potentially jeopardizing the government.
Edelstein says any conscription law would have to include sanctions on ultra-Orthodox individuals who evade military service. Haredi parties, which quit the government last week over the issue, accuse him of reneging on previous agreements to soften his stance on sanctions.
Hebrew media reports have indicated that Netanyahu already proposed removing Edelstein as head of the committee in a bid to placate ultra-Orthodox party Shas. The party reportedly rejected the proposal as too little, too late, and instead insisted on immediate progress on a bill enshrining Haredi yeshiva students’ exemption from military service.
Milwidsky himself has assailed calls to draft Haredi young men en masse, saying in a Knesset speech on Thursday that although he is secular, “as a Jew” he will refuse to take part in “harming the world of Torah.”
“We need soldiers, yes, but no soldier will help if we break the thing that truly holds us up. And that thing is not some Western value that was born 200 years ago — it’s the Torah. It’s Judaism,” he said.
Report: Cairo asks US to push Israel to increase Gaza aid, hoping it will influence ceasefire negotiations
Egyptian officials have appealed to the US to intervene in Gaza and force Israel to increase the amount of humanitarian aid that it allows into the war-torn enclave amid a worsening humanitarian crisis there, according to Lebanon’s Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Akhbar newspaper.
The report says that the US has yet to respond to Cairo’s request.
According to the Al-Akhbar, Cairo believes that increasing the flow of aid to Gaza could push Israel and Hamas to finalize a ceasefire and hostage release deal, as the dire humanitarian situation in the Strip is creating a “crisis of confidence” among negotiators regarding Israel’s commitments.
It says that negotiations are currently deadlocked, and Egyptian sources tell the newspaper that the atmosphere is “depressing” as prospects for progress dim.
Shas seeking to maintain de facto control of ministries it gave up over Haredi conscription issue — report
Shas leader MK Aryeh Deri after a meeting on the Haredi draft bill, outside the party's Jerusalem headquarters, June 4, 2025. (Chaim Goldberg/Flash90)
The ultra-Orthodox Shas party, whose ministers resigned from the government last week over the Haredi conscription issue, is said to be attempting to maintain de facto control over the ministries it headed until now.
According to the Kan public broadcaster, the party is opposed to Tourism Minister Haim Katz (Likud) taking over its ministerial portfolios, as it fears he will oust Shas bureaucrats.
Katz has already been appointed acting housing minister following the resignation of Yitzhak Goldknopf of the Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox United Torah Judaism party.
In the past, he was also given the portfolios of Otzma Yehudit ministers who resigned temporarily in protest of a ceasefire and hostage release deal in Gaza back in January.
The outlet cites coalition sources as saying that the Shas ministers’ resignations are a sham and that in practice, “everything will stay the same” in the party’s former ministries as they are staffed by Shas-appointed advisers and directors general.
Shas held the interior, social welfare, religious services, health, and labor portfolios, as well as the deputy ministerial position in the Agriculture Ministry.
According to Kan, Shas’s portfolios are expected to be transferred to a minister from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party.
In addition to Katz, the ministers being considered to take on those portfolios are Justice Minister Yariv Levin, Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi and Education Minister Yoav Kisch, Kan says.
The Walla news site reported yesterday that Shas chair Aryeh Deri would prefer that the party’s portfolios be handed off to Levin.
“It will be very easy to work with him,” unnamed Shas sources told Walla. “If he promises something, he delivers on it. If the portfolios are with him, [we] can sleep peacefully.”
Meanwhile, Jerusalem Affairs and Jewish Heritage Minister Meir Porush (UTJ) was said to be aiming for his portfolio to go to Karhi.
Hebrew media reports that Netanyahu is yet to reach a decision on the matter and has fielded many requests from Likud members seeking to take over the posts.
Some of the positions could also end up with the premier’s remaining coalition partners. Hebrew media reports last week indicated that National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s Otzma Yehudit party was demanding control of the housing and interior ministries, while Religious Zionism chair and Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has demanded that his party appoint the new head of the Knesset Finance Committee.
Likud whip Ofir Katz took over the committee on Wednesday evening, following the resignation of United Torah Judaism MK Moshe Gafni from the position on Monday in the wake of his party’s exit from the coalition.
Sam Sokol contributed to this report.
Palestinian journalist union says three Gaza-based reporters attacked by Hamas operatives
The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate, a non-governmental body affiliated with the Palestinian Authority, condemns an incident in which three Gaza-based journalists were attacked by operatives from Hamas’s “Sahm” unit — which is responsible for enforcing law and order in the Gaza Strip, and the Hamas police investigations department.
According to the statement, the journalists — Khaled Shaat, who works for the Shaat News Agency and Jordan’s Al-Hayat Radio; Mohammed Salama, a photographer for Al Jazeera; and Abdullah Al-Attar, a correspondent for Turkey’s Anadolu Agency — were assaulted by Hamas operatives at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis while on duty.
“Assaulting journalists and preventing them from carrying out their duties is reprehensible and unacceptable behavior,” the organization says.
“The syndicate also emphasizes the necessity of facilitating the sacred mission undertaken by journalists to convey the truth and defend their people’s cause, particularly in light of the repeated targeting they face from the Israeli occupation,” the statement adds, calling for an “urgent and transparent investigation into the incident” and for the perpetrators of the attack to be held to account.
The statement is accompanied by an image of one of the journalists sporting visible injuries to his arm.
Zamir said proposing IDF tighten grip on Gaza as alternative to ‘humanitarian city’
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir speaks with troops in the Gaza Strip, July 16, 2025. (Israel Defense Forces)
IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir has drawn up plans for the military to further intensify operations against Hamas, according to a Channel 12 news report that quotes sources familiar with the proposal describing it as “the plan for taking over Gaza.”
The report says the plan is an alternative to the controversial “humanitarian city” in Rafah pushed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which Zamir opposes, and would be acted on if hostage talks collapse or in the case of a truce if no deal is reached to end the war following the 60-day ceasefire.
The proposal reportedly calls for the IDF to capture and hold much more territory in the Gaza Strip than it currently holds, with the military gradually taking more ground each day to show Hamas what it’s losing.
A separate report by the Israel Hayom daily stresses the plan would see the military encircle most parts of Gaza, not take over the entire enclave.
The newspaper also reports that Netanyahu has prevented Zamir from presenting the proposal to the security cabinet and blocked a smaller group of ministers whom the IDF chief briefed from deliberating it.
UN agency: Israeli evacuation order in central Gaza ‘devastating’ to aid efforts
An Israeli military order for residents and displaced people in Gaza’s Deir el-Balah area to move south dealt “another devastating blow” to humanitarian efforts in the war-ravaged territory, the UN’s OCHA aid agency says.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs “warns that today’s mass displacement order issued by the Israeli military has dealt yet another devastating blow to the already fragile lifelines keeping people alive across the Gaza Strip,” it says in a statement.
On Sunday morning, the Israeli military ordered those in the central Gaza area to leave immediately due to imminent operations, with whole families seen lugging their few belongings and heading south.
OCHA says UN staff are “remaining” in the territory and their coordinates have been shared with “relevant parties.”
“These locations — as with all civilian sites — must be protected, regardless of displacement orders,” OCHA says, warning that any damage to health clinics, water infrastructure, and aid warehouses in the area “will have life-threatening consequences.”
Between 50,000 and 80,000 people were in the area when the evacuation order was issued, according to OCHA’s initial estimates.
Amid scrutiny, IDF releases video showing troops holding fire as Gazans collect aid nearby
Amid daily reports of deadly Israeli fire near aid distribution sites in the Gaza Strip, the IDF publishes a video showing troops standing meters from Palestinians collecting food this afternoon while commanders instruct soldiers not to open fire.
“Do not open fire, nobody opens fire,” officers are heard shouting in the video published by Col. Avichay Adraee, the IDF’s Arabic-language spokesperson.
The video shows Palestinians collecting aid from a truck and clapping and cheering, apparently at the Israeli troops.
“Not a single shot was fired. The order was clear: do not open fire. And the Palestinians’ reaction? It wasn’t fear… it was hope. Civilians began welcoming and cheering our soldiers,” Adraee says.
“Those who have lived under Hamas’ lies know that our soldiers and our presence are a source of hope. No starvation, no deliberate killing, no targeting of those waiting for aid on purpose,” he says.
“There is Hamas propaganda with hollow media mouthpieces promoting lies to try to salvage what remains of defeated Hamas,” Adraee adds.
#خاص هكذا سقطت جميع أكاذيب حماس
في مشهد يهزّ القلب من ظهر اليوم،
جنود جيش الدفاع يقفون بثبات…
وعلى بُعد أمتار – اعداد من سكان غزة يتسلمون المساعدات الإنسانية التي دخلت قطاع غزة.لم تُطلق رصاصة.
القرار كان واضحًا: لا تطلقوا النار
اما ردة فعل الفلسطينيين؟ لم تكن خوفًا… بل… pic.twitter.com/HQQPK7t0Tw— افيخاي ادرعي (@AvichayAdraee) July 20, 2025
The release of the video comes after dozens of Palestinians near aid distribution sites in Gaza were reportedly shot dead on Sunday, including an incident in the north of the enclave in which Hamas health authorities reported nearly 80 people were killed.
Responding to reports that some witnesses said Israeli troops shot at the crowd, the IDF acknowledged firing “warning shots to remove an immediate threat posed to the troops” in northern Gaza, but denied the steep death toll, insisting that the “reported number of casualties does not align with the existing information.”
Iran announces nuclear talks with European powers in Istanbul on Friday
Iran, Britain, France and Germany will hold nuclear talks in Istanbul on Friday, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesperson says early on Monday, following warnings by the three European countries that failure to resume negotiations will lead to international sanctions being reimposed on Iran.
“The meeting between Iran, Britain, France and Germany will take place at the deputy foreign minister level,” Esmaeil Baghaei is quoted by Iranian state media as saying.
The talks scheduled for Friday come after foreign ministers of the E3 nations, as those European countries are known, as well as the European Union’s foreign policy chief, held their first call on Thursday with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi since Israel and the US attacked Iranian nuclear facilities a month ago.
The three European countries, along with China and Russia, are the remaining parties to a 2015 nuclear deal reached with Iran — from which the United States withdrew in 2018 — that lifted sanctions on the Middle Eastern country in return for restrictions on its nuclear program.
The E3 have said they would restore UN sanctions on Tehran via the “snapback mechanism” by the end of August if nuclear talks that were ongoing between Iran and the US before the Israel-Iran air war do not resume or fail to produce concrete results.
“If EU/E3 want to have a role, they should act responsibly, and put aside the worn-out policies of threat and pressure, including the ‘snap-back’ for which they lack absolutely [any] moral and legal ground,” Araqchi said earlier in the week.
The snapback mechanism can be used to restore UN sanctions before the UN Security Council resolution enshrining the deal expires on October 18.
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